[ Page 4479 ]

CONTENTS

Proceedings

Oral Questions

Gasoline tax relief for farmers. Ms. Sanford –– 4479

Human rights branch annual report. Mr. Gabelmann –– 4479

Pornography. Ms. Brown –– 4479

Misleading business practices. Mr. Nicolson –– 4480

Police treatment of accident victim. Ms. Brown –– 4480

School transportation funding. Mr. Rose –– 4481

Builders Lien Amendment Act (No –– 2), 1984 (Bill M205). Second reading

Mr. Pelton –– 4482

Ms. Brown –– 4483

Mr. Campbell –– 4483

Hon. Mr. Smith –– 4484

Mr. Cocke –– 4484

Mr. Pelton –– 4484

Patients Property Amendment Act, 1984 (Bill M206). Second reading

Mr. Ree –– 4484

Mr. Cocke –– 4484

Hon. Mr. Smith –– 4485

Mr. Macdonald –– 4485

Mr. Ree –– 4485

Human Rights Act (Bill 11). Second reading

On the amendment

Mr. Stupich –– 4486

Mr. Lea –– 4488

Mr. Macdonald –– 4490

Mr. Hanson –– 4491

Mr. Rose –– 4495

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 4500

Mr. Nicolson –– 4500

Ms. Sanford –– 4502

Bill No 1, An Act To Amend The Vancouver Charter (Bill PR401). Mr. Parks

Introduction and first reading –– 4503

An Act Respecting Central Trust Company And Crown Trust Company (Bill PR402). Mr. Parks

Introduction and first reading –– 4503

Bill No 2, An Act To Amend The Vancouver Charter (Bill PR403). Mr. Parks

Introduction and first reading –– 4503

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 1984

The House met at 2:08 p.m.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today, or at least in the precincts, is an old friend of mine and a constituent of the member for Kootenay (Mr. Segarty), Mr. Albert Littler, I'd ask the House to please welcome him.

Also in the gallery is the president of Westar Timber — formerly, I believe, B.C. Timber Ltd. At least it is a part of BCRIC, which is soon to become the Westar Group. Would the House please welcome John Montgomery.

MR. GABELMANN: For the third day in a row now we have in the public galleries representatives of the B.C. Human Rights Coalition. I'd like the House to welcome today four people: Mr. Hugh McLeod, Miss Sue Straatman, Josephine Adams, and Evelyn Hammond.

MR. REYNOLDS: It's a pleasure for me today to introduce three Young Socreds who are sitting in your gallery and are here to talk to the members of our caucus about their dinner with Alexander Haig on Thursday, September 6, to be held at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver. They're hoping Mayor Harcourt won't come. I'd like to welcome to this House Robin Williams from West Vancouver-Howe Sound, Ron Finnegan from Kamloops and Darin Nielsen from Richmond.

MR. COCKE: On behalf of my colleague the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes), I'd like to introduce to the House the following people from the Native Communications Society of B.C. My colleague spent the morning showing them around. They are Linda Cumming, instructor of the journalism class, Denise Brillon of the class, Charlotte Caté, Waneeta Robertson, Bert Issac and Corale Dawson. I wish the House would share with me in welcoming them.

MR. MOWAT: In the House today we have a very good friend of mine, Mr. Beverly Justice. "Beans" is an architect with the firm Downs-Archambault and Partners. They are presently doing Canada Harbour Place, the Songhees housing development in Victoria, and the exciting High Lesion quad housing project on False Creek. They have also just completed the town hall in Tumbler Ridge. I'd ask the House to make him welcome.

MRS. JOHNSTON: In the precincts this afternoon we have 60 grade 10 to grade 12 students from Princess Margaret Senior Secondary School in Surrey. I would ask the House to please welcome them.

MR. CAMPBELL: In the gallery today are four people from Vernon: Mr. Ray Worley, Mr. Ted Osborne, Alderman Ernie Palfrey from the district of Coldstream, and Alderman Frank Paul from the city of Vernon. I would ask the House to make them welcome.

Oral Questions

GASOLINE TAX RELIEF FOR FARMERS

MS. SANFORD: My question is to the Minister of Agriculture and Food. In 1981 farmers who purchased marked gas and diesel paid no gasoline tax at all. Today the Ministry of Finance charges 18 cents tax per gallon. I'm wondering what representations the minister has made to his colleague the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) to provide tax relief for farmers who are facing a serious income squeeze in British Columbia.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: Mr. Speaker, questions relating to what advice a minister gives the Crown are out of order in question period. However, I would like to advise the member that in developing an economic plan for the province, issues such as these are being considered.

MS. SANFORD: I'm sure that will help the farmers, Mr. Speaker, based on what the minister is telling me. I think the minister would agree that a tax increase from zero to 18 cents per gallon over the past three years is a severe imposition on a very important industry in B.C. I'm wondering if the minister has decided to undertake a review of that particular tax, with the possible decision to make a representation to cabinet. You don't have to tell me about your representation, but would you consider it?

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: I'd be happy to do that.

HUMAN RIGHTS BRANCH ANNUAL REPORT

MR. GABELMANN: My question is to the Minister of Labour. Has the minister received the annual report from the acting director of the human rights branch?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: If I had received it, I would have filed it.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry. I couldn't hear that answer.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: If I had received the report, I would likely have filed it by now.

MR. GABELMANN: Just for clarification, do I understand the minister to say, therefore, that he has not received a report from the acting director?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Unless it happens to be on my desk today, which I have not yet seen.... I would have filed the report had I received it.

PORNOGRAPHY

MS. BROWN: On May 2 — that's yesterday — a group of magazine distributors met with a number of women's groups and church groups and decided to urge the Attorney-General to set up a panel to review pornographic material, which is still being sold in British Columbia. In view of the growing support for this real solution to the menacing problem of serious pornography, is the Attorney-General now ready to accede to their wishes?

[2:15]

HON. MR. SMITH: The initiative that Mr. Pattison has taken with community groups to try to find a method of vetting publications is a commendable one, and one that I hope will be supported by the magazine industry — not just

[ Page 4480 ]

by some segments of it but by the entire industry. I applaud him for giving leadership to that industry. I understand that the groups that have met on this subject and wish to try a review board are going to be making a submission to me; I certainly will be looking closely at what they have to say, and viewing that in light of the experience in Ontario to see how best such a review board can function.

I welcome Mr. Pattison's initiative and also the interest of the church groups and other community groups that wish to see some action on obscene literature. I also hope that we can have some action from the federal government on amendments to the Criminal Code, not only in the area of obscenity but also in the area of hate literature.

MISLEADING BUSINESS PRACTICES

MR. NICOLSON: A question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. A Toronto-based company, Intra Canada Telecommunication, was convicted last March in an Ontario court of a $500,000 telephone directory scam in which misleading advertising circulars were made up to look like genuine yellow-page invoices. What steps has the minister taken to curb this company's operations in British Columbia?

HON. MR. HEWITT: I believe the member refers to a problem that has been in existence for a number of years, where notices come in and they really look somewhat like an invoice, and many businessmen, usually small businessmen, pay them without recognizing that they're really a solicitation for an ad to be placed in a magazine. Other than that, I have no information on the issue he raises. I would be pleased to receive any material he has. I'll also check with my staff and report to the House as to whether or not we've had a complaint in British Columbia.

MR. NICOLSON: Since the minister disbanded the consumer protection branch last fall and fired the staff, British Columbia has become a haven for con artists. It's sort of like the old Knothole Gang hideout in the bad days of the west. It has become a haven for con artists and shady dealers who wantonly violate the Trade Practice Act. Is the minister aware that this company I have just mentioned continues to mail phony invoices in British Columbia, even after it has been convicted of misleading advertising in an Ontario court?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, I can advise the member that my ministry has on a number of occasions in the past years put out information and press releases with regard to this type of practice that is carried on in the business community. I would advise the member that the consumer branch of the Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs is still very much in existence and that all the legislation dealing with consumer protection is still in existence. Where there is a problem, all the person involved has to do is communicate with my ministry and we will take the necessary action.

MR. NICOLSON: If the minister's branch is taking action, I want to know how it can be that nothing has gone out about this particular company which is doing this here in British Columbia. What steps is the minister taking in the case of a company which has been convicted in Ontario, where they still have some consumer protection for small business people, honest people who pay their bills on time? What protection is the minister giving to people here in British Columbia, when people are allowed to carry on the practice of sending out invoices dated April after they were convicted in March of this year?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, methinks the member is being political. I would chastise that member for not coming to my office and giving me some assistance to stop this sort of thing. I appreciate the member's concern for the public and the consumer, and I would appreciate a copy of the material he has raised in this House. I would be pleased to bring back information also as to what action has been done, and if there hasn't been any action I would certainly follow it up in my ministry.

POLICE TREATMENT OF ACCIDENT VICTIM

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, this question has to do with the Harvey Jack case. A month ago the Attorney-General told the House that he was satisfied with the internal police investigation into the case of Harvey Jack of Kulleet Bay, who was paralyzed as a result of not receiving medical attention when he was placed in a drunk-tank following an automobile accident.

In view of the fact that the Attorney-General has commented on this case, is he willing to release the RCMP report to which he referred?

HON. MR. SMITH: As the member well knows, Mr. Speaker, those reports are not released, and they're not released as a uniform practice across this country, a practice that was followed by the New Democratic Party when they were government — and a sensible practice. It does not allow for full investigation and for people to come forward and give full statements if all those statements later are going to be replayed in public by all sorts of amateur sleuths and other well-meaning people — or political headline-hunters — who want to read them. It isn't because governments wish to act in secrecy; it's because in gathering the information the police use a variety of sources. They require that people will come forward voluntarily and cooperate, and they just won't do so if a bit of their statement given voluntarily is going to appear in a headline.

So I cannot release the report, but I can tell the member that I personally read the report and the statements that were made by the witness, everything that was available. I had a considerable amount of sympathy, in reading that report, for Mr. Jack. But I also have to understand that when the police have nothing to direct their attention to the fact that a man is injured in the back seat of a motor vehicle when he's found, and there are other people who are conscious in that motor vehicle, as there were in this case, and no one draws to their attention the possibility of injury of this man who was sitting in the back seat, they cannot assume that he needs medical attention or take him to the hospital. They didn't do that. They had to remove him from the vehicle because the vehicle had stopped, having hit a tree or an obstacle, and was on the roadway. Someone could have smashed into it and maybe caused death to the people inside it. So they had to remove this gentleman. He obviously has incurred some serious injuries in some way — whether in the accident, whether aggravated later I cannot say. But the police cannot read people's minds, and they cannot give on-the-spot medical examinations and have surgeons present every time they stop

[ Page 4481 ]

a car or take someone into custody. In this case the police, the moment they were alerted by this individual to his injuries, got him to medical attention. So I don't know how they can do more. I sympathize with the gentleman, but what more can the police do? Have a surgeon with them riding in every car? No, they can't.

MS. BROWN: The Attorney-General feels at liberty to comment at length on a report which no one else has seen, including the family involved in the case. He also announced that the deputy commissioner of the RCMP was going to be meeting with the family as well as with other native groups to discuss this, because the native groups are not satisfied that you are sympathetic with the gentleman. That is not enough.

Is the Attorney-General willing to answer two questions? Why have none of the people involved been contacted by the deputy commissioner of the RCMP? They say they haven't. Also, will you tell this House which of the native groups have been invited to meet with the deputy commissioner of the RCMP? None of the groups have indicated any invitation from the deputy commissioner to this date.

HON. MR. SMITH: I'll be glad to bring that information back to the House. I did not say that the deputy commissioner was going to meet with Mr. Jack or his family. I said that the RCMP were going to hold meetings with representatives of native groups on Vancouver Island to try to listen to their concerns, not just about this case but about other matters involving the justice system that concern those groups, and that I would receive a report. I will be glad to bring back to the House what meetings have been arranged, or are going to be arranged, and I assure the member that those will take place.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, what the House also needs is an assurance that the deputy commissioner is also going to meet with the family involved.

HON. MR. SMITH: I cannot give that assurance, Mr. Speaker.

SCHOOL TRANSPORTATION FUNDING

MR. ROSE: I was a little concerned, Mr. Speaker, about the time remaining, but I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Education that concerns the granting of an excess amount — suddenly the transportation budget went up $256,000 in Prince George, following a secret meeting between two senior administrators of that district and two trustees. Since the formula for the fiscal framework for transportation is pretty specific, I'd like to ask the minister what cost factor was adjusted to create this windfall in this district, and whether other districts could look forward to similar favours in the future from the minister.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I'm really surprised that the member didn't ask that question two, three or four weeks ago. There was no secret meeting. I met with the people in the school district, like I met with the people from Qualicum, and there were 200 kilometres of bus route which had not been claimed within the formula. Secondly, we found 38 kiddies who required special...

MR. ROSE: Kiddies?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: All right, children. Little ones.

...who needed some help, and I was going to get what help I could for them. [Applause.] I'm not finished. I expected this call might come in. I'd be quite prepared to read to you the letter that was sent to the chairman of the school district reciting it. Just to give some assurance to the member that School District 57 is having some difficulties with the framework...,

MR. ROSE: With their MLA.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: And with their MLA.

...600 or so showed up last week to tell me that they were somewhat concerned with the restraint package. I want to assure you that the amount of money involved was something in the order of $115,000, about one-third of the amount that went to Qualicum. As a matter of fact, it works right within the formula, and all your people who have made appropriate inquiries of the ministry have been so advised.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: In making the introduction, I apologize that because I had legislation on the floor I wasn't able to meet with this group today. I would like the Legislature to welcome a large group of students, along with their teachers, from Brookswood Junior Secondary School in Langley. I would like to give a special welcome to one of their teachers, Mr. Filuk, who has brought students here for 11 consecutive years — which is just about the same amount of time I've been coming here.

MR. ROSE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I wonder if you would permit me to thank the minister for his filibuster.

MR. SPEAKER: No.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: First, I ask leave of the House that the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills be permitted to meet this afternoon at 3 o'clock in the Hemlock Room.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to proceed to public bills in the hands of private members.

[2:30]

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, the opposition would be happy to accede to that request. Unfortunately the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) is not here to shepherd her bill. Since it is private members' day, I would ask that motion 33 also be given an opportunity for debate. It's a very important motion about the question of Harry Jerome.

Interjections.

[ Page 4482 ]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, we seem to be straying somewhat from practice at this time. While it is in order to ask leave, clearly a debate ensuing upon that request is not in order. These are matters, I respectfully suggest, hon. members, that should best be decided outside this chamber, not inside.

MR. COCKE: I would therefore ask leave....

MR. SPEAKER: We already have one leave on the floor, hon. member.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I've asked leave to proceed to public bills in the hands of private members; that's the first issue.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill M201. On behalf of my colleague the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips), I move adjournment of the debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call Bill M203. On behalf of the hon. member for Cowichan-Malahat, I move adjournment of debate on Bill M203 until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I make a similar adjournment motion on behalf of the hon. member for Cowichan-Malahat re Bill M204.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call second reading of Bill M205.

BUILDERS LIEN AMENDMENT ACT (No. 2), 1984

MR. PELTON: I am very pleased to stand in my place this afternoon to speak to second reading of Bill M205, Builders Lien Amendment Act (No. 2), 1984. I won't take a great deal of the House's time, because I know that members on both sides of the House have been lobbied on this matter and are well aware of the implications involved. I have just one or two words, and then I will formally move second reading of this bill.

I suppose, Mr. Speaker, that legislation of this type is some of the most enlightened legislation which has ever been passed in jurisdictions such as this. Over the years — and when it all began — it referred specifically to individual workers and tradesmen, and was the only protection that they had under the law against people who would take advantage of them from the point of view of not paying them for their services and various other things. However, over the years there has been other legislation which has come along, such as the Employment Standards Act, which has done much to take care of this particular type of individual. But also over the years times have changed, life has become much more complicated, and we have found that others — tradesmen, artisans and so on — were being covered under legislation similar to a builder's or mechanic's lien act.

Over the years various changes and amendments have come along to the act, particularly to the act which was originally enacted by the Legislature of this province. They have changed so very many times that it has become highly complicated; as a matter of fact, it is so highly complicated today, I understand, that there are very few cases where actions are brought under the act that don't result in litigation through the courts. Be that as it may, Mr. Speaker, I understand that many attempts have been made to rewrite this act, but to this point in time that has not been possible. It hasn't occurred, and so we are left with the same act, and we are still left in the same position of wanting to provide protection for various groups of people, which requires further amendments to the act.

This brings me to the specific point of my being on my feet: that is, to convince all members of this House that we should now amend this act once again to include those people who are involved in the rental of equipment. Members on both sides have received correspondence and have talked to people who support this type of amendment and who have requested this amendment. I also know that a special committee of our caucus was struck and looked into this whole situation very carefully. They received delegations, and they gave it a great deal of discussion. In the end, the caucus supported the private member's bill, which I bring forth for second reading today.

I would also like to acknowledge the fact that members opposite, particularly the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown), had intended to bring forward an amendment to Bill 1 which was presented to the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith). The hon. member has acceded to my bringing forward this new bill, which includes the very thing which she intended to bring forward with her amendment.

Before I get down to moving second reading. I would like to read into the record the numerous pieces of correspondence that I have received on this subject since it became known that I was interested in bringing this matter before the House. I would like to quote one or two paragraphs from one particular letter which I received, because I think it supports in a very real and excellent way the reasons why this House should unanimously support this bill. By the way, this letter is from a company called Anthes Equipment Ltd., and it was written by a lady by the name of Zuccolini.

"For several years equipment rental companies have been trying to be added to the Builders Lien Act. Although we have had support and many government members can appreciate our problem, we seem to be overlooked. There is very little statistical information available pertaining to equipment rental companies. The last study we could find was in 1976. There were 126 equipment rental companies, with a revenue of $24,767,000 annually. Based on the proportionate growth rate in the construction industry, in 1981 we were approximately 200 equipment rental companies, with an approximate annual revenue of $53,841,000.

"We in the equipment rental business are an integral part of the construction industry — usually the first company on the job and very often the last one off. The rental industry supplies such items as cranes, shoring, scaffolding, washrooms, pumps, safety

[ Page 4483 ]

equipment" and so on.... The list is almost endless.

"With most of the equipment there is a great deal of labour involved in the maintenance of this equipment. It is not just material sitting in a yard waiting to go to a job; it must constantly be serviced. This equipment is expensive to start with, but the maintenance makes up 48 percent of our cost, and half our workforce is" constantly involved in the performance of this task. "Therefore we are in the unique position of not only supplying material, but also extensive labour goes into maintaining equipment.

"The problem is that many general contractors and developers are taking out as much money up front in a job as they can, and towards the end of the job they advise us that they lost money or ran into problems beyond their control and to claim against the 15 percent holdback" — as it stands today.

"There is seldom enough to satisfy all the lien claimants, so they try to eliminate as many suppliers or trades as they can, which leaves the equipment rental companies out on a limb. We are asked to drastically negotiate downwards" — the amount they are owed — "or receive nothing. This is directly due to the fact that we do not have liens, but in some cases we try to claim anyway, but usually the outcome is negative, because the lawyers involved are aware that we have no lien rights."

In this company whose letter I am quoting from, they have an owner-operator. They advise that they have been asked to take as low as 20 percent, or even less, of what they are owed. If there is a dispute while the job is going on, the only recourse they have is to seek legal counsel or get a bailiff to retrieve their equipment. The general contractor then advises that they cannot remove their equipment because, for example, they might be renting out forms and the concrete hasn't cured. So they wait. Then they try to retrieve the equipment by making other arrangements, but inevitably this does not succeed.

What is happening now is that many contractors are forming limited companies for every job. Therefore if they have taken the funds up front, and they put suppliers off until they get down to the holdback, there will not be ample funds; then they bankrupt the company and the supplier and trades get hurt.

I could go on. As I've said before, I have numerous pieces of correspondence from people who support this amendment and have waited many years for it. So without further ado, Mr. Speaker, I would like to move that the bill be now read a second time.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, the opposition is very pleased to be able to support Bill M205 and to thank the government back-bencher for pulling the government's chestnuts out of the fire. I was very happy to accede to his bill, because as he said it certainly covers one of the very important issues which needed to be covered. I recognize that when a government back-bencher introduces a private member's bill it certainly has a much better chance of going through than when an opposition member introduces the bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MS. BROWN: I would like to be proven wrong. I would like the government to accept an opposition bill sometime. It's one of the things that we all look forward to in this House.

I agree also with the member reading the letter from Mrs. Zuccolini into the record. I suspect that he probably got a different letter than the one which came to our caucus, because the letter which we received from Anthes Equipment stated two major concerns: one for lien rights for rental equipment companies, and the second that the holdback should remain at 15 percent and not be reduced to 10.

I want to express some disappointment that the private member's bill was not extended to include both of these concerns. I'm glad it includes at least one, but I would have been ecstatic if the bill had included the answer to both of the concerns, because as the letter goes on to state, in many instances when the job is over, the only money that's there for the people who haven't been paid — either the equipment rental agencies or the workers — is the 15 percent holdback. It should have been increased, not decreased to 10 percent. I'm sorry that was not included in the member's bill, and I hope that we will see another private member's bill from that very forward-looking back-bencher from Dewdney, who is serving his one and only time in the House, as I gather he is going to step down in favour of Mrs. Weremchuk next time around. But while he's here, I'm certainly pleased that he has introduced this bill, and the opposition is very happy to support it.

[2:45]

MR. CAMPBELL: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support this amendment to the bill. While we were investigating this in committee, it became apparent that this act had been amended many times, and because of this it was very difficult to implement the original proposals of the bill. Because of the changes which the previous speakers both spoke about, it is obvious that the Builders Lien Act we think of today is different than that which was originally passed.

We had one group of people — builders and some financial people from HUDAC — meet with this committee to present their side of the story, but the problem was that they could not agree among themselves exactly how the Builders Lien Act should read. Some of the people felt that this bill should be scrapped entirely, because if the job gets into financial difficulties and certain tradesmen should place liens on it, the job then stops and the financial institutions will not advance further funds. Then the Builders Lien Act becomes a deterrent rather than a help. If the financial institutions will not advance further funds, the job stops, goes into default and foreclosure, and the cost of the interest, the courts and the legal system eats up whatever money is left. So the builder who filed the lien receives no return and the job perhaps stops.

There is another theory that the Builders Lien Act should be amended so that in certain cases where jobs are bonded, or letters of credit placed before the job commences, those jobs should be exempt from the Builders Lien Act at that time. If further liens were advances, they would be paid for by the bonding company and the job wouldn't stop but would progress, as was originally intended, and it would therefore be completed.

I have one further recommendation, Mr. Speaker. After this bill is passed as amended, I really believe that a committee of both sides of this House should be sent out to hold perhaps three or four general meetings throughout the

[ Page 4484 ]

province to investigate this matter further, because I'm not convinced that the bill we presently have in front of us is the best that could be produced. I believe that, as this is an absolutely non-political bill, if a committee was sent out to the interior and perhaps to the north, as well as to Vancouver and Victoria, and meetings were held with the building community and the financial people, a better bill than what we have in front of us could be forthcoming. I would therefore recommend to the member who implemented the amendment to this bill that at a future date a committee could perhaps be struck to do this.

HON. MR. SMITH: I congratulate the members on both sides of the House who have spoken, particularly for the bipartisan position which they have all taken, and I welcome on behalf of the government the addition of this particular category to the Builders Lien Act. There is a bill before the Legislature amending this act, but this provision in this private member's bill can and should be incorporated in the law. The government accepts the amendment, Mr. Speaker.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I've been very impressed with the non-partisan, bipartisan approach to this bill. As a matter of fact, I had every intention of supporting the bill — until I found that it was totally inadequate, as brought to our attention by the member for North Okanagan (Mr. Campbell). Now I'm really in a quandary. I think that maybe we should have a recess so that the government and its backbenchers can get their act together.

MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, I stand on my feet with a great deal of trepidation. I would like to suggest to hon. members, particularly the member for New Westminster, that I think my colleague was really referring to the main bill, the Builders Lien Act, as opposed to the secondary bill that I brought forward this afternoon.

If I may, in closing debate I would just like to say — and I am sure that the hon. member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown), who obviously has the same letter as I do, but reads from different paragraphs, will also support this — that the equipment rental companies are not asking for an edge on other trades or suppliers, but only to be placed on an equal footing with everyone else. They don't expect the government to guarantee their survival but only to have the same rules regarding their exposure to the many problems that arise from day to day out in that construction field so that they will not be exposed to any greater extent than anybody else in the field.

I now move second reading of Bill M205.

Motion approved.

Bill M205, An Act to Amend the Builders Lien Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill M206, Patients Property Amendment Act, 1984, Mr. Speaker.

PATIENTS PROPERTY AMENDMENT ACT, 1984

MR. REE: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand here to move second reading of Bill M206. If a person is committed under the Patients Property Act because of mental infirmity or disease or age and cannot, in other words, look after their own affairs, the courts can appoint a person to look after their affairs on their behalf. That person is called "the committee."

If nobody is appointed, Mr. Speaker, the public trustee, under the statute, becomes the committee. But also under section 6 (2) of the act, anybody's appointment as a committee can be rescinded, save and except for the appointment of the public trustee to that position.

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of my amendment is to empower the courts to have the authority to also remove the appointment of the public trustee. Unfortunately, the public trustee is a complete power unto himself. He is the only trustee in this province, under legislation, who is not accountable for his decisions, actions or lack of actions and is unremovable by the supreme court of this province when he has once been appointed as the committee under the statute.

Mr. Speaker, it has come to my attention that in a number of instances where there have been other persons equally competent to administer an estate to which the public trustee has been appointed as a committee, the public trustee would not voluntarily remove himself. I have one estate in particular, Mr. Speaker, where a daughter of the committed mother has grown of an age, has an education and has business administration experience. In another almost related court action, the judge himself commented on the young lady's ability. In that particular instance, the committee, being the public trustee, will not voluntarily resign his appointment. The daughter, who has a more personal interest, an emotional interest in her mother's well-being and welfare, cannot look after her mother's affairs. The public trustee has the sole power.

Mr. Speaker, I have also had brought to my attention an instance where a gentlemen was committed because of Alzheimer's disease. The public trustee would not consent or in fact defend an application for the wife of the committed gentleman to act as a committee. The wife was perfectly capable and very competent to look after her husband's affairs, and the husband's affairs included joint tenancy within the house. In such circumstances the wife cannot refinance the house without the consent of the public trustee or handle any of the joint matters that normal married people could do. She has less say in the family matters with her husband committed than otherwise.

It is my pleasure to submit this bill, a public bill in the hands of a private member, in order that the public trustee, his office, his actions or inaction, should be reviewable as any other trustee of this province by the courts of the land.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I will move second reading of the bill.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, certainly that brings up a number of problems that we've all faced over the years. I believe, however, that while this bill does mitigate or modify to some extent the problem which the member outlines, the major problem that I see is the all-powerful situation that the public trustee has had bestowed upon him in the first place. My feeling is that if there were some way of amending our statutes to give the public trustee more responsibility either to the Legislature or to the Crown or something, once having been appointed.... You see, what this bill does is say that we can appoint other than the public trustee as the committee. But the problem is, once having done that, how do you get

[ Page 4485 ]

them out of the hands of the public trustee? I'm just wondering about the power of this bill to do that. The public trustee has, in my view, too much power, and I read this bill to suggest that the legislation.... A court cannot now rescind the appointment of a public trustee as committee; the amendment would give the court that power. If it does, then I'm quite happy. I'm not at all sure that it can, but the member says it can, and I hope it does. It strikes me that one of our problems over the years has been that once the public trustee is given that court order, it makes it very difficult to come up with a change. My other problem with it is that you have to go to court. That means lawyers and costs and so on and so forth.

Someday we had better take a good look at the entire Public Trustee Act and see what can be done to make things just a little bit easier. I have seen cases exactly the same as that which the member has outlined, where once in the hands of the public trustee, never out, under any circumstance. I think that doesn't bode well for many of the family situations that we've all seen. So we'll be supporting this, and maybe we'll look at it in more depth in committee.

[3:00]

HON. MR. SMITH: The member has brought forward a proposed amendment to the provision that allows for the cancellation by a court of the appointment of the public trustee. For many years the law has had embedded in it a special position for the public trustee; you could rescind the appointment of any other trustee, but you could never rescind his appointment. The practice has normally been, I'm advised, that where a competent and suitably qualified member of the family wishes to displace the public trustee, the public trustee consents to stand aside. But there is a worry that the section doesn't allow that to happen even when there's a consent by the public trustee. I heard what the member sponsoring the bill said in his argument, and I also heard the comments of the member for New Westminster. The whole role of the public trustee is perhaps worthy of examination.

The public trustee is really in the position of the Crown as a parens patria, and over the years some of the powers of the Crown as parens patria have moved by legislation from the Crown to the courts in any event, and the courts have assumed some of the responsibilities of the parens patria — or the parent of all people who are unable to look after themselves, whether they're incompetent physically or mentally, or deemed to be so by age. I really don't see anything at all unprogressive or dangerous about allowing the court to make a decision that perhaps the public trustee should be displaced in favour of someone else. It may be the only way it could be brought about under the old legislation, even with consent. So I think it's a sensible amendment, and on behalf of the government I thank the member, and I thank the official opposition for their helpful comments. We will accept it.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, just a couple of words. It's partly for a social reason that the public trustee comes in. There are all kinds of small estates which are very difficult to administer. There is furniture and stuff lying around, and a car — but very little; not enough to justify having all of the family, who sometimes can't be located, found and served with notices, as they have to be, and brought together. And then they probably need a lawyer. So really, the government of British Columbia, through this office of the public trustee, is performing a social service in the case of very small estates where there are difficulties of that kind — and sometimes very large ones too, for different reasons. I have no doubt the Attorney-General welcomes this amendment by the hon. member, because it's part of the downsizing of government. I don't know whether he has looked at it philosophically. It's something that Ronald Reagan would support, yet I support it too. I'm sure the courts will be careful in those situations not to dump out of the hands of the public trustee one of these things that really can't be easily wound up privately, even with two or three lawyers representing all these people.

The public trustee has done a good job in the province of British Columbia. It's a very vexatious and difficult job. You sell a car that's got a mortgage or two against it, and then you have a complaint by somebody that it was sold for too little, and all this inventory that has to be taken. But it's a public service that some people can't afford, and it should be available. I'm sure the courts, in exercising this discretion to cancel out the public trustee, will do it only in those cases where it's truly justified.

MR. REE: I'd like to associate myself with the comments of the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald). I do feel the public trustee on the whole does an excellent job of service to the people of the province. I also feel that the public trustee should be accountable to our courts, as any other trustee is accountable. I feel that by removing the perpetuity rights of the public trustee, allowing someone to make an application who might have an interest in an estate to become a committee, it may be, shall we say, one little feather on the back of the public trustee to ensure his integrity again.

The second member for Vancouver East commented on the downsizing of government. It certainly had crossed my mind that this amendment would be acceptable at this time, through the privatization moves this government has been making. It would allow people in the private sector to be committees of estates which are now administered by the public trustee. It may relieve us of some of that cost.

I thank the government for supporting this bill, and I thank the opposition for likewise supporting it. I move second reading of the bill.

Motion approved.

Bill M206, Patients Property Amendment Act, 1984, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I seek leave to continue with private members' day. I seek leave to debate Motion 33.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, there is some question that that motion could even be accepted by the Chair at this time. I therefore regret that I am unable even to put the leave request by the member.

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 11, Human Rights Act.

MR. COCKE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I've been in this House for many years, and that's the first time I've ever seen anybody speak from a desk other than his own.

[ Page 4486 ]

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair apologizes, hon. member. The Chair watched the proceedings as well. I concur in the observation of the member. I'm sure the Attorney-General inadvertently walked to the wrong microphone.

HON. MR. SMITH: May I be recognized as the speaker to follow the stranger that spoke before? I call second reading of Bill 11.

HUMAN RIGHTS ACT
(continued)

On the amendment.

MR. STUPICH: In discussing this amendment yesterday the hon. second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe) urged that the government refer Bill 11 to an all-party committee of. the House. He urged it in a way that could only have been taken as asking for some cooperation from the government in dealing with this legislation. I think it was a suggestion that the government should take seriously. There has been so much confrontation not only in the House in recent months but certainly in the whole community in the past ten months. The confrontation started boiling on July 7 when the government introduced the 1983-84 budget and the 26 pieces of legislation. The confrontation drew to the attention of the world what was happening in B.C. It was not good attention; it was attention that was very critical of what government was doing in British Columbia. Certainly in the House the attitude was reflected in the debates that went on in this House. Records were broken for the length of time which the House sat day after day — 24-hours-a-day sittings — and for the introduction of closure as a means of shutting off the opposition not just once but, I believe, 20 times. Unfortunately any offer of cooperation had to be made by the opposition first. It would seem to me that in making that offer the government would have been well advised, for the sake of British Columbia, to have shown that it was willing to start talking with the opposition, rather than talking down to it.

It would cost the government nothing now to support the amendment to delay the bill for six months. They have discharged the Human Rights Commission. If it's a matter of restraint, dollar-wise, it's not costing them anything to keep the Human Rights Commission members busy, because there aren't any anymore. They have suspended the activities of the human rights branch to the extent that they don't even file their reports anymore. So it would seem to me that delaying it would cost the government nothing, but it would gain the government a great deal. As a matter of fact, I think the government would gain a great deal more from this than would the opposition. B.C. would gain if we could jointly point to some example of cooperation. All it takes is for the government to accept this amendment to postpone consideration for six months and then to go on and actually follow through in the process of setting up a special committee, or an appropriate select standing committee, to hear arguments about this legislation before the Legislature proceeds further with it.

During the course of the debate on Bill 11 we have advanced arguments as to why we feel it should be withdrawn and alternative legislation introduced. The proposal now is that we hoist it for six months so that we could consider not only this legislation but arguments that might be made by individuals in the community who are afraid of being adversely affected and by organizations that are worried about their ability to look after the concerns of their members. All of these people would have an opportunity to present themselves, their arguments and their briefs to a standing committee of the Legislature that could sit between sessions. It could show a new spirit of cooperation in British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, someone has to make that kind of a move.

There have been one or two attempts from the Premier's office to meet with different people in the community. In the preparation of his budget the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) did meet with many people who represented many organizations and people. It was a good move, and at the time I complimented him for it. I didn't think that the results were particularly good. Nevertheless, there was that openness and a spirit of cooperation, as though the government was backing away from what it did last year and embarking on a new program. Now it would seem that, unless the government is prepared to accept this amendment, they were prepared to go so far and no further. The only minister willing to take his proposals to the community as a whole and give them some opportunity of making some input into what he proposed to do was the Minister of Finance. The minister in charge of this bill could do the same thing: he could recommend to his colleagues that the government accept the opposition amendment. He could also promise that in accepting it, the government would be quite prepared in the six-month period to expose their ideas and arguments to the public and let the public make known their position with respect to this legislation.

[3:15]

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

I recently heard advertisements telling everyone how great things are in B.C. from the point of view of human rights protection, Apparently the government has taken to the airwaves and is spending goodness knows how much money, telling everyone that what they are doing is the right thing for B.C. But they are expressing their determination not to listen. It's a one-way conversation. They're paying out good taxpayer dollars to say to everyone: "Our human rights legislation is the best in Canada." That's what they're telling them. They're not prepared to listen to the people who are being affected, or who are concerned about being affected, to listen to see whether they might have some input into this legislation that might, indeed, make it better legislation. Certainly I have seen no response from any organization organized to help individuals fight for human rights in their particular line of interest supporting the legislation before us now. The only expressions of support that I've seen.... I've heard precious little from the government side of the House. The minister himself spoke and told us what a great bill it was. I would have been very surprised if he didn't. That would apparently be the only voice of support for this legislation. Other members on the government side who have spoken have been very brief. It would seem that they have nothing good to say about this legislation.

People out in the community are concerned and worried. They are going to be affected and feel the lack of opportunity to work on behalf of the individuals curtailed with the passage of Bill 11. They are worried and concerned about it, and they are urging the opposition members to do everything they can to bring to the attention of the government the advisability of delaying passage of this bill until the community

[ Page 4487 ]

as a whole has an opportunity to meet with government, to talk with them, to try to persuade them to make changes.

It is not surprising, I suppose, that the B.C. Federation of Labour is one of the groups that has put out a press release urging that Bill 11 not be proceeded with. People might say: "What else might you expect from the Federation of Labour?" It's not an organization....

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on.

MR. STUPICH: I hear "right on" from one of the two government members in the House.

The B.C. Federation of Labour is not an organization that was organized to fight for human rights. They were organized to fight for people who really don't need the protection of human rights legislation. They have their own organizations that are able to negotiate on behalf of their members. Certainly they take advantage of the legislation in some circumstances and on some occasions, but in the main the organized trade union movement is strong enough to fight for human rights when it's dealing with its employers in the main.

It's people who don't have the protection of the B.C. Federation of Labour who need the kind of help that was available to them under the NDP administration with the human rights legislation that we brought in. The Human Rights Commission did excellent work. The human rights branch in the Ministry of Labour did excellent work, and what was all available and was being done previously is now being undone without any opportunity for the public as a whole to speak to members of the Legislature to tell them how they feel. Indeed they did speak last fall. It was one of the reasons for operation Solidarity coming together. Whatever else one might say about them, one can certainly say that they were able to get the community interested in what was happening in Victoria. The question wasn't raised then: "Is the House sitting?" Mr. Speaker, from time to time in your experience I'm sure you, along with all other members of the House, have found on your return to your constituency that people wonder if the House is actually sitting. People have wondered: "Where were you last week? Why weren't you around? I didn't see you." When you say you were in Victoria, they wonder what you are doing there. They weren't aware that the House was sitting. And then when you are there they wonder why you aren't in Victoria, because they are not aware that the House isn't sitting. But last fall everyone all over B.C. knew the House was sitting and knew the kind of legislation that was being passed — or being debated, at least; not very much of it was being passed for some time.

One of the bills that the government agreed to hold back on for some time — at least we assume it was part of the Kelowna agreement; we're not privy to the terms of that — was the human rights legislation, Bill 27 at that time. It was the one wiping out the Human Rights Commission. It was bad legislation. You will recall, I'm sure, the extent to which it was attacked by people, not only residents of British Columbia and organizations in British Columbia working on behalf of their members but also by the United Council of Churches when it was meeting in Vancouver and by federal ministers — four of whom, I believe, signed a joint letter or message of some kind complaining about what was happening in B.C.

We did get lots of attention in the fall of 1983. We haven't had nearly as much attention this time, but neither have we had anyone saying that Bill 11 is markedly improved over Bill 27 that was introduced last year. There are some minor improvements, but in introducing even minor improvements the government has shown some willingness to move. Why not go a step further? There is no hurry. The Human Rights Commission is gone. It can be reappointed. It can be brought back. The existing legislation still calls for it, but nevertheless it's gone. The human rights branch is inactive. Why the haste? What would it cost the government to hold this up for six months, and what praise might they then get from the people who are concerned about the loss of human rights? They could stand back and say: "Yes, we are going to take another look at this. Yes, we are going to refer it to one of the existing committees or set up a special committee. We are going to refer this legislation to them and just see what kind of response we get from the community." Give people an opportunity to come in and talk about it and ask questions. Perhaps some of their fears might be allayed. Perhaps they might offer some advice that would persuade the minister and his staff to make further changes and improvements. There is that possibility.

As long as there is the possibility of getting legislation that would better serve the interests of the people of British Columbia, then why not go that route? In his opening remarks in introducing second reading of Bill 11, at no point did the minister make any case for urgency in dealing with this particular legislation. As I say, Mr. Speaker, so much could be done for his own credibility and that of his government if they were to accept the opposition's request that it be referred to an all-party committee, so that that committee could listen to, meet with and hear representations, and could make recommendations for changes in the legislation. The minister would still have the authority to reject, accept or change the recommendations that were made. He wouldn't have to accept them, even if an all-party committee recommended them. He could still have his own reservations and do what he wanted to, but at least it would show that he was willing to listen.

We are dealing here with the rights of minorities, and certainly one of the responsibilities.... The majority has the right to govern, and the government has the number of members that will ensure passage of this legislation — in fairly short order if they're determined to do it. But along with the majority right to govern is the responsibility to consider the rights of the minorities. There is no one else to look after the rights of the minorities other than the majority. When minority groups such as the ones who have signed the statements complaining about what has happened are raising the fuss that they are in the community, are approaching members of the Legislature and are writing to them individually and as groups, urging that there be this consideration, unless the minister can show us that there is some reason for haste and for not listening to people, then I would urge that the House accept the opposition amendment in this instance and that the bill indeed be hoisted for six months.

I had occasion recently to meet with the Human Rights Coalition. I took a couple of hours out of my schedule to meet with them in Vancouver, although it was not time that I wanted to spend these days. They were wondering if there was any way at all in which they could bring their concerns to the attention of government by doing all sorts of outlandish things they had thought of, none of which were practical, in my opinion, as I so advised them. There were 11 people at the meeting representing 11 different groups. There could have been more, but it was a weekday morning meeting, and

[ Page 4488 ]

people just aren't that able to come to such meetings unless they're unemployed — which many of them are — or they're working where they can get time off.

The meeting started at 9:30 and went on until 12:30 — although it was supposed to adjourn at 12 — with the participants seriously considering available courses of action to persuade the government not to proceed at this time with Bill 11. It is for that reason — because we have been getting this pressure from people, organizations and our constituents, who are concerned about what is happening and are approaching us and asking us to do what we can to ensure that Bill 11 does not pass — that we moved the motion to hoist the bill for six months and followed that yesterday with the recommendation from the member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe) that not only should we postpone consideration for six months but also that we should actively start a discussion of human rights in our province — not just let the thing sit for six months and do nothing about it.

Let's start talking actively. We didn't talk last fall. The government brought in legislation that it was obviously very determined to proceed with at that time in an unchanged manner. There was no question then of backing down and making any changes. There was no discussion. The government wasn't ready to listen. They were persuaded to listen about some of the legislation, and I like to think that was one of the ones, because it was one of the ones that was not proceeded with. So apparently they were listening a little bit and, as I say, made some minor improvements. I believe, from what I've seen of it, that every change that they made was a minor improvement over the previous legislation. It still doesn't bring it anywhere near what it was under the NDP legislation, but it was some minor improvement.

That being the case, why are they so reluctant to move forward a little more? Why are they so reluctant to show to the people of British Columbia that when there is no urgency or need to proceed in haste, they are prepared to listen to them? All we're asking is that consideration be postponed for six months. That doesn't necessarily mean that the bill will be dead. It could very well mean that in the interim period a parliamentary committee could consider this legislation and invite people to appear before it, including people from the ministry, those who were on the old Human Rights Commission which has since been retired, those who worked in the human rights branch, and those who were upset about some of the cases that were taken up by the human rights branch that were supposed to have been of nothing but nuisance value. Let's hear from those people, too, who feel that we really don't need any protection for human rights other than the courts themselves — which has been mentioned in connection with a lot of legislation and is very expensive.

I urge the minister.... I see he's frowning, and I don't think I'm getting through to him at all. He apparently has no intention of listening to anyone about this. His mind is made up. We got the indication last fall that he was prepared to listen. That being the case, I wonder to whom he has listened, because there is precious little evidence in the legislation before us now that he has listened. That's a message that in the event the government is determined to proceed without the hoist, without referring this bill to a special committee where witnesses can be heard, then of course the word will have to get around that the opposition party was the only one in the House concerned with listening to people express their concerns about the way in which the government is abandoning its responsibilities to look after the minorities.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Not so.

MR. STUPICH: I hear a "Not so" from someone who speaks on such legislation only from that member's seat. If that member were prepared to stand up and discuss this legislation, then I think it might be worth listening to what she has to say. But until she has something worth standing up for, I think her remarks are not worth my comments, so I won't comment any further.

I would like some members from the government side of the House, other than the minister responsible, to stand up and tell us something about this legislation. I wonder what members on the government side are telling their constituents that they're talking about here in Victoria. On very rare occasions does one of them have the gumption or the intestinal fortitude to stand up on his or her feet and talk about what's going on in the House. They'll talk from their seats....

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: I'm out of order. This has nothing to do with the hoist motion; I appreciate that. But I would invite some comment from the government side of the House. If you're really supporting this government, stand up and say so. If you're opposed to it, well, stand up and say that too.

[3:30]

The hoist motion in this instance is a good one. There are times when it's put simply as a delaying factor. In this instance the opposition is putting forward this motion because they believe it would be good for British Columbia to back away from the precipice that we approached so closely last fall. We moved away, and now it would seem that we want to go back to it. It would be good for British Columbia if we could demonstrate some cooperation in the House — not just outside, between the public and the government, but here — where both parties would sit on a committee and actually deal with a piece of legislation, listen to people put forward their positions, make some recommendations to the minister, and between the two parties come up with some legislation that will serve the needs of the people of British Columbia. That is not an unreasonable position to put forward. The only unreasonableness being displayed here today in this whole matter is that the minister himself seems not the least bit interested in giving the public outside of this chamber an opportunity to make their representations in public to an all-party committee on something about which they feel very strongly, and something which is important in British Columbia in 1984.

1 support the hoist motion, and I particularly support the idea that there be an all-party committee to which this bill would be referred.

MR. LEA: The opposition is asking for what's called a hoist; in other words, a delay for six months. We're asking for that so that people in this province can consider, in principle, what this bill is all about. What are the rights of citizens in a free democratic society? That really is the question. I don't like the term "human rights;" I much prefer "civil rights." "Human rights" implies that you have some sort of divine providence that is going to give rights to citizens of the world no matter where they live. All you have to do is take a look at near neighbours of ours in Latin America to find out that human rights are not there for everyone. Civil rights can be there for every citizen in a

[ Page 4489 ]

democratic system, but in order to do that there has to be a law, rules set down by the citizens within any given democratic system. So what we're really talking about is how individuals protect themselves from either government or other citizens within the society in which they live.

There are political philosophers who talk about living in the natural state of nature, where there is no civil authority and each individual has absolute freedom to do what he or she wants. Each individual in that natural state of nature has absolute freedom. They can kill, they can rob; it's the strongest survive and the weak perish. But not in a civilization, not in a civilized state do we allow that to happen. In a civilized state individuals have rights guaranteed to them by the state, called civil rights.

When you move from that natural state of nature into a civilized society, you do give up some individual freedoms for security, because there's a problem with living in a state where everyone has exactly all of the freedom they want, absolute freedom. If each individual has absolute freedom, then everyone else does. And if that happens, you have absolute insecurity along with absolute freedom. So for every bit of security that you go for as a citizen, you give up a little bit of freedom. Then you call those freedoms rights because there's a limitation on what each citizen can do, because in a civilized society we want to protect the weak from the strong who might exploit the weak, whether it's another citizen, a corporate citizen or the state itself.

We are looking at a piece of legislation that should be primarily there to protect individuals, I disagree with those who say it's there to protect minority groups against majority groups. It should be there to protect individuals in a society — nothing more, nothing less. Each citizen should be protected equally in the same measure.

One of the things that I think we do when we're looking at this kind of legislation is try to make it too specific. We try to dot too many i's and cross too many t's, and say that this person is included and this one isn't, when in fact each individual in society should be included by the very essence of the act. That's what you should do. That is what this bill does not do.

The measure of a democratic society is the amount of legislated freedom that people have. It's called their civil rights by authority. You can't have authority unless you have an author. And who is the author of authority in a democratic state? The author of the authority is the citizens themselves. Each citizen is the author of authority, and each citizen wants the authority to protect him against absolute freedom.

As I said earlier, absolute freedom is dog-eat-dog. Absolute freedom is the weak always being afraid of the strong. There's no point in having a society, there's no point in having a democracy, unless you take away some of the absolute freedoms of people who would be living in a so-called natural state. We don't want the insecurity of each individual being able to bully another because of strength. The very essence of democracy, both social and economic, is that we will protect the weak against the strong. If it wasn't for that, there would be no point in having democracy, none at all. And that's, I'm afraid, where we have a problem getting through to Social Credit.

They believe, somehow, that rights are from Divine Providence and not a civil matter. They don't believe that we have to protect ourselves as citizens against each other by civil law. And that's a mistake, because it's the only protection we have and it is the only reason we move into a civil state. There is no other reason. It's to make sure that we live in a state where we can be civil with one another. If we are not treated as equals before the law, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, colour, religion or creed, then we do not live in a civilized state. We may be a little better off than we would be in the natural state of nature, but we do not live in what democratic theoreticians call a civilized state. That, surely, must be the object of all of us.

I don't believe that a piece of legislation such as this should protect minority groups from majority groups. It should protect individual citizens against anybody or whoever in society.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I agree with my colleague from Nanaimo that this is the time for discussion. It is up to us as legislators to lead. It is up to us to go out into the community and talk about civil rights. It is up to us as legislators to go out into the community and talk to them about what democracy is all about, in a non-partisan way. This kind of legislation is not partisan. This legislation should he of equal importance to all of us, regardless of the political party that helped elect us. We're talking about the society we live in and the kind of rights each citizen should have and will have under whatever legislation we pass. There can be no partisan-gripping in this discussion. I believe that each one of us as citizens.... When it comes right down to it, we are no more and no less. That we've been elected to this Legislature doesn't make us more and doesn't make us less. As citizens we should all be concerned about what individual rights protect citizens against the strong and against the bully. I see that as a dangerous course that this government is taking, not only with this legislation but with other legislation. It's taking away the rights of individual consumers in other legislation, so they won't be bullied by the strong. I believe there are people who believe, somehow or other, that if you had no guaranteed freedoms everything would work out fine, and that there are citizens who don't need to be protected against the strong, whether socially or economically. In fact, we as individuals are far from perfect. We wouldn't need any kind of legislation or any kind of authority if we were perfect, but we're not. Legislation to protect consumers, tenants, civil rights and workers should be there because we're not perfect. Hopefully, you never need it; then you would be living in a truly civilized state. But until that time arrives we do need this legislation, and we need it on a non-partisan basis. As has been suggested, what better way to get a non-partisan piece of legislation that each of us as a citizen needs and wants than by a non-partisan committee of this House, going out to speak to citizens in a non-partisan way.

In conclusion, what is going to happen in this Legislature is that this piece of legislation is going to pass. The government back-benchers will vote with the government. Regardless of whether they have individual trepidation about it, they will vote with the government. Each time I see the two parties lining up against each other in the House, I have my trepidation about the very system that we work with, called the British parliamentary system. When I see both sides of the House line up on a piece of legislation like this, one side being the New Democratic Party and the other being the Social Credit Party, then I think it's time to worry. Sure, there are other things we will line up on; there may be an economic theory that one believes in and the other doesn't, and we'll

[ Page 4490 ]

line up according to philosophic beliefs party to party. But on this kind of legislation we should not line up as a party. I would like to hear from other members in the House, Social Credit members who before they are Social Credit are citizens of this province, as we are citizens before we are New Democrats. This is not a partisan issue. We should be discussing it freely without party interference of any kind in what we say. We are playing with freedom itself, when we should be working at getting the best piece of legislation that the 57 of us can possibly provide for our citizens. It's our duty. It should be what we want, and it should be what we work towards.

[3:45]

1 think it would behoove the minister to go for the six-month delay. When it comes right down to it, the citizens would think more of him. Maybe they wouldn't vote for him, but that's not the point. This piece of legislation is not political. It's taking place in the political sphere, but it should be more than that. What we should be doing as 57 legislators is sitting down together on a committee and saying to each other and to the public: "How can we as citizens help each other to bring forth legislation that guarantees civil rights so that no individuals can be bullied socially or economically just because they're different or weak?" That's what we should be doing, and I don't see the process taking place. That should bother us all, Mr. Speaker. I do support this hoist.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I spoke against this bill on second reading, and I now rise to support the hoist for very practical reasons. We've had a pretty good Human Rights Code, which needed some additions in place, in the province of B.C. It has been suddenly dismantled without legislative sanction, and a new one is being pushed through this House which requires deliberation and consultation. Of all the questions that have been raised by people as to this new abbreviated form of civil rights, none have been answered in this House. A six-month hoist would enable the minister to occupy a little niche in history by his willingness to stand down for a while with his legislation and have the people comment. I would like to see them comment during that six-month period in the form of a travelling committee of the Legislature which would go out and hear briefs and opinions on this subject which means so much to the psychological fabric of British Columbia, as well as the legal interpretation of this or that section.

There's concern and worry throughout the whole community in British Columbia when the subject of human rights is downsized and when you eliminate the whole commission, eliminate the human rights branch, and then withdraw the enforcement and the investigative procedure into the Ministry of Labour itself, as busy as so many of them are with other jobs and being public servants directly responsible to the minister. So there should be those hearings. There are all kinds of unanswered questions about the present legislation which in my opinion would be answered very negatively in terms of the bill that is proposed. For example, we had the Dhaliwal case and Plateau Mills decided under the old Human Rights Code. In that case the complainant — a Canadian of Punjabi origin — did not have fluency in the language. The tribunal held that he was nevertheless entitled to the job, because fluency in language would not have interfered with the carrying out of his duties, or understanding a foreman's instructions which could easily have been relayed if they were missed by him, or living up to safety standards. The board found for Dhaliwal, recognizing that the reason he was not allowed to work.... Fluency of language might very well have been a code word for racial discrimination or discrimination on account of his immigrant status or his religion, which of course was very different from that of the community that has been British Columbia historically. Had this bill retained the provision that no one shall discriminate without reasonable cause, then in certain very narrow circumstances the Human Rights Commission could very well find that discriminating against somebody because he wasn't fluent in the language was just a code word for saying: "This is how we can handle this fellow and reject his application, because we don't want a Punjabi working in that mill."

When you have that kind of a situation where that case cannot be addressed under this legislation that has now been drafted, you have festering feelings of ill will that spread throughout the community. You have a large and important segment of our workforce who feel they are being picked out for discrimination. Perhaps in many cases they are wrong and the discrimination is not there, but there are some cases where there is real discrimination. Unless you have a broad enough Code to encompass a hearing for those cases, you're going to have those feelings of ill will which soon become reciprocal. People who feel that they have been picked out for special unfair treatment react to that, and other people react to them, and you break down the harmony that we expect we have a right to believe in in this province.

I know there are cases that come forward where there is doubt as to whether there is real discrimination. Speakers in this debate have talked about the black boy and the school. The high school principal gave him an order that he was not to go within three feet of any of the girls. It may be that he had behaved in a certain way. If it had been a white Anglo-Saxon child, the principal might have said in that case: "You can't go within six metres of any of the girls." But we don't know. With this kind of a code that kind of a question may never be decided, even by an investigator. Again you get a feeling that there has been discrimination because of the colour of the skin of the young pupil, and whether there had been or not remains a question mark. Those kinds of question marks fester.

There's the question of a young person who is over the usual apprenticeship age applying for an apprenticeship program. One case came up where the applicant was aged 30. There is no protection under the present Code, because age discrimination relates to ages 45 to 65 under the legislation that is proposed. Again it may be perfectly legitimate to reject this 30-year-old from a particular apprenticeship program, but if it is solely discrimination on account of age without any other justification, then that is the kind of discrimination that a Human Rights Commission should be able to look at and correct. That's why the minister ought to take back this legislation and reintroduce general provisions requiring that in cases where there may be discrimination that isn't covered by the Code, discrimination without any reasonable cause can be redressed.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, he was entitled to entry, as the member for Comox (Ms. Sanford) points out. There was no reasonable cause. It had been discrimination on account of age. I'm the last one to support that kind of discrimination.

[ Page 4491 ]

Nobody should support that kind of discrimination whether they are young or getting on in years, because these things fester out in the community. Why should that kind of thing be left with no chance for the Human Rights Commission to address the problem.

There's the question of height and weight. Let's take a fire-fighting force of a municipality. The provisions as to height and weight might be perfectly justifiable on the grounds of safety or for some other justifiable reason in terms of the equipment that has to be moved. Again they also may be a code for discrimination against women in the workforce for no justifiable reason in a particular occupation. What can the new Human Rights Commission do about that? Nothing. They say: "We have height and weight regulations." The commission says: "I suspect that's discrimination against female workers." But the commission can't do anything about that because this legislation is so defectively drafted. There are many other kinds of cases.

Sex orientation. We have people in the province of British Columbia who believe that those words should be one of the prohibited grounds for discrimination. I suppose there is a legitimate debate that discrimination against homosexuals is now prohibited under the general language of discrimination on account of sex. I think if I were the counsel for somebody who had been turned down for a job because of his private sexual orientation, I would argue that that person had been discriminated against on the grounds of sex. That's in the act. But there's been no precedent that says discrimination because of sex applies to the case I'm talking about. You have a lot of people who contribute to the wealth and prosperity and happiness of the province of British Columbia who feel that they are being picked out for lack of protection under this legislation. Mr. Speaker, it would be a very simple matter for the minister to clear up that kind of a thing. At the least, in the six months that we are proposing he could listen to the concerns, which are both legalistic and moral, from groups such as that.

I notice that employment discrimination because of marital status is in the act in section 8, and I'm glad to see it to this extent. I remember a case that I once took for the flight attendants in Canada — and it was only about 20 years ago — because all the airlines automatically fired any stewardess who got married. Even in those days we fought grievances, and I fought a legal case to establish that nobody should be fired just because they were getting married. We quoted the decision of a French court which said that that kind of discrimination, because somebody went through a marriage ceremony, was forcing the poor things to live in sin, which was not a good outcome, and eventually that kind of ban was lifted.

In the sections where somebody may say "you have discriminated against me because of my marital status" — just for going through a form of marriage — that applicant, for relief under these sections, has to prove that it was discrimination intentionally committed by the company. The words "because of" require you to prove intent and put the onus on the applicant. Here you have the employer sitting back, and all the company has to say is: "Oh, it wasn't that you were going to be fired for getting married or that being a married person we won't employ you. We're firing you because you're more likely to have children." Or they may even revert, as the airlines did in the earlier case.... It was almost as if they were Love Airlines, saying: "We want young chicks. We want the jet jocks to feel that they're on Love Airlines. This is a selling point for us in selling tickets." So the act that requires the applicant to prove intent when they were discriminated against by reason of marital status is very defective.

[4:00]

I'm not going to repeat what I said before. I dealt with the lack of appeal to the courts — taking everything into the Ministry of Labour and politicizing the process of the enforcement and investigation of human rights. I deplore those aspects of this bill. I think it should be an autonomous, strong, respected body, with its own enforcement and investigative procedure that's out there in the community, and not part of government. I'm not going to go on at length about that all over again. But I say here that we have a minister who has an opportunity to listen to the community and maintain in force during this period of time the very excellent Human Rights Code that we have, and to come back into this House after six months with a better bill. For that reason I support the hoist.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, I had to get out of my bed, where I was recovering from the flu, to speak, because I gather that this government is hell bent for leather to pass this bill with an evening sitting tonight, which says a lot in itself. It says a lot when a government is so insistent on pressing forward with its bad, brutal legislation that it must sit at night on a bill such as Bill 11.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Poor baby!

MR. HANSON: The Minister of Labour over there should be hanging his head in shame, rather than calling over inconsequential little remarks.

A number of years ago in this chamber a bill was introduced and passed, under the New Democratic Party government, called the Human Rights Act. Here we are now ten years later faced with the situation where the provisions of that bill, rather than being improved upon and having other sections added according to legitimate concerns.... What we have instead is a government rolling back achievements that were made statutorily by the people in this chamber to benefit and protect the people of this province. It shows that not only do you have to fight to improve the human condition, but you have to expend an enormous amount of energy protecting and ensuring that the protections that are in place stay in place.

The loss of the "reasonable cause" provision has a number of massive impacts in the workplace, in the home, and in all aspects of our life in our community in British Columbia. I would like briefly to discuss one that April Katz, the chief compliance officer of the human rights branch in April 1983, quoted in "Labour Law and Practice: Human Rights." She addressed the question of the "reasonable cause" provision, and in that provision she applauded it as a catch-all for group characteristics not specifically named in the legislation. She noted that that clause was unique to British Columbia. It is obviously impossible to plug all holes in a law. You must have a way in which the law can adapt to new incidents and areas that were not anticipated. She noted that the reasonable cause provision was a catch-all for group characteristics not specifically named in the legislation, and the provision has allowed complaints to go forward on the basis of such group characteristics as physical or mental condition, sexual orientation, family status, ages under 45,

[ Page 4492 ]

ages 65 and over, sexual harassment, racial harassment and pregnancy.

It has long been known that women have been harassed because they happen to perpetuate the human race and happen to be impregnated and bear children, and for that service to human beings they are penalized in the workplace and the community. April Katz indicated that the largest single category of incidence of complaint is sexual harassment. The area of sexual harassment is no longer specifically provided for in this legislation. Because of the loss of the "reasonable cause " provision, women working in the workplace are going to be subjected to sexual harassment which the previous provisions of the Code precluded by law. It is interesting that in 1983, when April Katz was making her submission, "Labour Law and Practice: Human Rights," she stated that in the area of sexual harassment, "while other jurisdictions had been plagued with questions of whether or not sexual harassment was included under the definition of sex discrimination, British Columbia has proceeded with complaints of sexual harassment under the catch-all provision of 'without reasonable cause.'" That overall clause protected women from having to endure sexual harassment in the workplace.

It should be noted, on the subject of sexual harassment cases pursued under the reasonable cause provision, that Ms. Katz states in another paper entitled "Human Rights Practices and Procedures, " also of April 1983: "The reality is that in a substantiated sexual harassment complaint we have yet to find a harasser without a past." In other words, it is a very common complaint and something that is practised by individuals who, unless there is a provision in a statutory act, would persist in this practice.

Sexual harassment is the single largest-growing category of discrimination, both alleged and proven. We are faced now with a situation where this government, by eliminating the "without reasonable cause" provision, is opening up the area of sexual harassment in the workplace that, to quote April Katz, is "the single largest-growing category of discrimination, both alleged and proven," in all of the human rights branch. That is an incredible statement. In the public mind, I'm sure that probably it's the public's perception that racial discrimination, ageism and discrimination on the basis of sex would be the most common areas of discrimination. But according to the chief compliance officer of the human rights branch, the area of sexual harassment is the single largest offending category. I wonder what the Minister of Labour has to say about that particular area. Is he not concerned about the growing number of women in the workplace, obliged to supply the needs of their families, and the growing number of single parents, whose responsibility to provide all aspects of support and sustenance for their family is growing in our community? Is this minister not concerned that those women are now vulnerable to discrimination by sexual harassment of supervisors, of co-workers and so on? What does he say in response to the claim of the chief compliance officer about this category? Rather than listening to my comments, the minister chooses to leave the chamber. I don't believe they care about human rights. I don't believe that the area of sexual harassment is really a concern. I think they find that.... They probably discount that. They probably don't believe April Katz' claim that that is the single largest-growing category of discrimination in our community. Under Bill 11 there will be no protection against sexual harassment in the workplace.

Let's take another look at the Indo-Canadian experience. Our party has a long tradition of fighting for minority rights in this chamber. Not only in other parts of Canada but also in our Legislature here in British Columbia there have been people on this side of the House who have fought for the rights of Indo-Canadians, for people of Asian ancestry, for native Indian people, for as long as the recorded history of this province.

I would like to recount to you, Mr. Speaker, very briefly, the story of a private member's bill that was introduced into this chamber by a CCF member for Vancouver Centre in 1944 by the name of Wallis Lefeaux. Wallis Lefeaux was concerned about the fact that Indo-Canadians were not granted the right to vote in British Columbia. Yet they had a long history as citizens of British Columbia, as Canadian citizens, and had worked in the historical development of this province. He was asking this chamber, in the form of a private member's bill, for the right of Indo-Canadians to vote. During the heated debate on second reading of the private member's bill, George Pearson, the Minister of Labour, speaking in opposition to the CCF bill, accused East Indians of being "unreliable, dishonest and deceitful." What a scandalous thing to have been uttered in the Legislature of this House! "The experience is clear," he said. "The Hindu is not helping us to maintain the standard of living we seek in this province. There is no body of people who give the Labour department more trouble than the Hindus." He said: "The Chinese and Japanese are a source of worry to the department." These quotes are contained in a story in the Vancouver Sun on March 9, 1944, headlined "B.C. Hindus Flayed by Pearson as Unworthy of Receiving the Vote." This is 40 years ago; I was one year old when Mr. Pearson was uttering these words on the floor of this House. What a disgrace, Mr. Speaker!

Yet I had the misfortune of sitting in a committee with the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. A. Fraser) two weeks ago, when we sat down and talked about native Indian people in British Columbia. I asked the commissioner of corrections whether there was a high incidence of Indian men and women in jails in British Columbia and how we could account for that fact. The Minister of Transportation and Highways addressed the commissioner of corrections and stated that it was his view — the popular perception in his mind was — that Indian people in his community liked to go to jail in the fall because they preferred the clean sheets and the television and the recreation of the jails to being at home on the reserve. What an incredible statement to make! That was two weeks ago, and here we have George Pearson, 40 years ago.... I classify those comments in the same category. Racism has not diminished in this province. It is still alive and well, and it finds a nice medium to thrive in those benches on the other side of this House, Mr. Speaker. Here we have a government removing protection from the citizens of this province. If anything, they should be protected from these cabinet ministers who hold those despicable views.

[4:15]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, at this point I cannot comment on another member's statements, but we cannot impute any improper motive. I sincerely hope that this member is not imputing dishonourable motives to another hon. member in this House.

[ Page 4493 ]

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, it is a matter of public record — it is in Hansard, it is in the newspapers, it was carried on the radio — and we have yet to have a public apology from the Minister of Transportation and Highways for uttering that statement. What a travesty. Of course there's poverty among the native Indian community, but to allege that anyone would choose incarceration in a jail for a clean bed and a television set is disgraceful, in my view.

Back to 1944, when the fight was being taken forward by the antecedent to our modern party. The CCF were fighting for the vote for the Indo-Canadian and the Asian people — citizens of this province. I'd like to continue by stating some of Mr. Pearson's comments and to frame the kind of debate that was taking place at that time as being very, very little different than what is before us now.

Lest anyone think that Mr. Pearson's statements were isolated rantings of an uninformed legislator, the following quote from a Vancouver Sun editorial on the issue echoes the sentiment:

"The question of the franchise comes back, in practical terms, to the fact that 95 percent of all oriental immigrants to Canada stop off permanently in British Columbia. Eight percent of our population in this province is oriental."

Again, this is the language of the Vancouver Sun in 1944. To continue:

"If they had votes, it is quite possible they could elect three representatives to the Legislature: a Chinese, a Japanese and a Hindu. The hon. member from Powell Street is not quite a myth, but if our 65,000 people of oriental blood were scattered throughout Canada their electoral influence would be spread too thin to count in any objectionable manner. Presently the Hindus are making all the hay they can from the unguarded statements of the Hon. George Pearson that he had found East Indians uniformly to be dishonest, deceitful and unreliable."

Shame on the Vancouver Sun in 1944, because they carried, in that editorial, that notion that people of Asian ancestry, people of Indo-Canadian ancestry, were unworthy of carrying a vote and the franchise in this province. We have not moved far from that in this province when we have a government that does not go to the people and ask them how the Human Rights Act could be improved and what active areas of discrimination are occurring and does not put in there in clear terms that sexual harassment is clearly something that is not tolerated in British Columbia; or the whole question of sexual orientation or of ageism — being discriminated against because there happens to be an ageing process genetically coded in human beings and we get older and we die. But the point is — and I know it very well, Mr. Speaker, because there's a large elderly population in my own community — that ageism is a fact of life. People are discriminated against on the basis of age. People do not get treated the same way. The elderly do not get the same benefits and services, because they happen to be over 65 or 70 years of age.

Mr. Speaker, to continue a little bit further on this fight that was taking place 40 years ago, understandably the Indo-Canadian community was outraged. Despite the arguments of Mr. Lefeaux, who put the private member's bill forward, and other CCF members such as Grant MacNeil of Burrard, Laura Jamieson of Vancouver Centre and G.F. Stirling of Salmon Arm, the private member's bill died in the Legislature, and the Indo-Canadians and those of Asian ancestry were denied the vote. They didn't get the vote until five years later, and it wasn't until some 11 years later that native people got the vote in 1960. The private member's bill died in the Legislature after the Speaker ruled it out of order after listening to the arguments of the then Minister of Education, Mr. Perry, that the bill was out of order because it involved the expenditure of public money.

Mr. Speaker, it's a well-known fact that a private member's bill dies because opposition members are not entitled to move a bill that calls for the expenditure of public funds. That is a privilege that is granted entirely to the treasury benches. At no time did the government accept the argument that in principle people of Indo-Canadian, Asian and native ancestry should be given the right to vote as free citizens in our society. Those fights were carried forward by our party, to its great credit. It has stood alone on many occasions fighting for the rights of minority groups, for the invisible minorities and the small minorities, as well as for the visible minorities.

In that year newspaper columnist Barry Mather — Mr. Speaker, as you know, Mr. Mather was a CCF person, and his wife was a member of this chamber — wrote: "In our hearts we know that to deny Indo-Canadians and Asian people votes perverts every principle of democracy." But the climate of distrust and discrimination against the Japanese, Chinese and Indo-Canadian minorities continued. It was another five years before these groups obtained the right to vote provincially. Native Indians waited until 1960 for the franchise.

Many informed groups have put forward to the government their concerns caused by a clause in Bill 11: how it strips away basic rights that allow us to move in dignity in our community and that ensure that our age, our sex or any attribute will not impede our right to move freely in society, to work, to rent accommodation, to make application for work, to work for the government and to speak out. Yet here we have a stripping away of these rights. Here we have the prospect of a government that wants to sit tonight. They want to sit at 8 o'clock and press this issue, because they want it passed. They don't want the community to know what it's all about. They don't want the community to mobilize against it. They don't want the bad press across the country again that British Columbia is making inroads into basic human rights.

Let's look at another clause: the proof of intent to discriminate. Bill 11, like Bill 27, probably will cover only intentional discrimination. For example, height and weight restrictions would no longer be considered to be sex discrimination unless it could be proved that the purpose was to exclude women or people of Asian ancestry. A person who is excluded because of lack of wheelchair access to a building would have to prove that the stairs were built for the purpose of excluding the disabled. What a backward way of making laws, Mr. Speaker. The onus is on the disabled person in a wheelchair who is denied access to a new building — let's say a new library, a new municipal building or something of that nature — to prove that the stairs were built in order to deny them access, rather than on the government to offer access to everyone. People don't choose to have MS. People don't choose to be born without the use of their legs. Yet we have a government now that puts the onus on them to prove they've been denied access.

Another clause: discriminatory advertisements and application forms. Bill 27 eliminated the protection in the

[ Page 4494 ]

existing Code against discriminatory advertisements and application forms. Bill 11 restores the prohibition against discriminatory advertisements, but there is no section like that in the existing Code dealing with discriminatory application forms. Therefore an applicant could be required to furnish information about matters such as race, religion and political belief For some time now people in our society have not been required to provide that kind of information on application forms, yet we are now opening up the opportunity for employers to ask for just that kind of thing.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Another section: enforcement agency. The Human Rights Commission, which was dismissed in July 1983, and the human rights branch are replaced by a new council. The council will have no responsibility for educational programs. There is no explicit provision for staff. The minister has been reported as stating that the council will rely on staff from other parts of the ministry. The enforcement will be dispersed through various ministries of the Crown. There will be no avenues, no ways of following through and doing the necessary investigation.

As explained, the council is given powers to dismiss complaints on a variety of grounds, powers that neither the human rights branch nor the commission have had under the existing Code. The powers of the council in Bill 11 are even broader than the powers granted the council in Bill 27. Bill 11 contains no provisions to ensure the independence of the council, and members can be dismissed by cabinet order at any time without cause. Mr. Speaker, at a time when we need an independent, impartial commission, free of political interference and of the kind of political views held and made public by the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. A. Fraser), rather than having an independent council we have an appointed council. It will be headed up by Mr. Pattison, perhaps. He seems to get all of the main jobs. There are other people — maybe Mr. Shrum will be on there, attesting to the clarity of toxic effluent and how it's good for.... The composition of the council: Mr. Gaglardi will probably come out of harness for it. There's three. Probably Mr. Williston, although he's in the government's bad books; he has criticized the government on its forest management, so it's unlikely that his application will be short-listed.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about Ralph Loffmark?

MR. HANSON: I think Ralph Loffmark won't get a chance. They had a try at his pension; he got backed off there. But now the changes to this act may not protect Mr. Loffmark's pension. Maybe they'll have another run at his pension. Maybe they'll feel that's fair game.

Who else is there?

MR. REID: Is this to do with the hoist, or what?

[4:30]

MR. HANSON: Yes, it has to do with the hoist.

There may be a number of other people who could be considered for this council, but be that as it may, we know it will be a Social Credit–oriented council, one that will not embarrass the government, and one that will not go forward and enforce what little protection exists here. It will not take action against the government in the way that it certainly could. In the whole area of complaints, complaints of violations will be filed with the council, which will be in charge of investigating them and will decide whether they should proceed. So you can rest easy in your bed that Gaglardi or Mr. Bonner or, perhaps, Leslie Peterson.... I think he would be an obvious choice for the council. He perhaps would come forward and could then vet the complaints to see which ones should in fact go forward.

Complaints must be filed by the person discriminated against, or by someone else on behalf of that person and with that person's consent. For example, a member of the public who witnessed an apparent violation could not file a complaint without finding, and obtaining the consent of, the victim of the discrimination. As in Bill 27, the council can dismiss a complaint before any investigation if it is deemed frivolous, vexatious or in bad faith or could more appropriately be dealt with under another act. These powers existed in Bill 27 but not in the existing Code. What the government has done.... You often hear this government talking about cutting red tape, but what they are actually doing is creating red tape when it has to do with access to protection on behalf of the citizens. In other words, they create bureaucracies and mazes and warrens of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo for the public to try to find redress for their grievance or to achieve proper resolution of their problem.

After investigation the council can discontinue a complaint at its discretion. Bill 11 — like Bill 27 — provides no limits on the power of the council to order a discontinuance. The council can choose to appoint one of its members to conduct a hearing or it can refer a case to the minister, who can decide whether....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr. Member, are you not possibly getting into committee debate here in discussing some of the sections, rather than broader debate on the bill itself and the hoist motion?

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, I'm outlining the merits of the six-month hoist so that the government can appreciate the number of serious flaws in the bill and the loss of protection for the public. Clearly if the government were to set the bill aside and conduct hearings to meet with the informed public and all of the interested parties.... And there are many. There are many in the Human Rights Coalition who would like to discuss clause-by-clause the provisions of the bill. For me to outline to the minister some of these clauses.... It reinforces my argument for it to be set aside.

Protection of those with physical and mental disabilities. Bill 11 gives explicit protection to people with physical and mental disabilities; in cases involving the sale or the rental of property, protection is strengthened. However, in cases involving public facilities and employment, which are central to a person's life, the practical effect is likely to give less protection than was given by the reasonable-cause provisions of the existing Code. Therefore, although it looks as if these groups benefit from the bill, the net effect may well be to lessen protection.

In terms of the provisions of the bill and its inadequacies — in conclusion on that — if Bill 27, the precursor to this bill, had been enacted, it would have effected ended protection for most victims of discrimination. The same is true for Bill 11. Bill 11 makes fairly minor improvements on Bill 27, but retains the general scheme of that bill. The result is that a number of groups are denied protection entirely. Even those

[ Page 4495 ]

groups that are protected are likely to succeed only if they have the the financial resources to take a case forward on their own. At a time of financial hardship that is being experienced by the citizens of this province, the necessary funds available to take a case forward, to fight their way through the council and the enforcement provisions, certainly precludes access to protection under this bill for the vast majority of British Columbians.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the government to set this bill aside for six months to give the citizens of this province a fair opportunity to make their concerns known. I urge the government not to ramrod this bill through this evening. There's no need to have an evening session on May 3, 1984, to push this bill through. It is absolutely horrendous that a government at this point in time would adopt this kind of behaviour and strategy on a bill so central to community life in British Columbia, and be so insensitive and brutal in their legislative actions that they feel impelled to use all of the statutory muscle of their increased numbers in this House to push something through in the spring of the year, when the public has not had an opportunity to digest the implications of this bill, and to foist it for a number of years onto people. It's going to have drastic implications for people of minority races, for women in terms of sexual harassment, for the mentally and physically disabled in terms of employment and physical access to buildings and facilities, and for other individuals and groups that I have not enumerated in my comments. I urge the government to set the bill aside for six months.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I hope that that prolonged round of applause is not deducted from my time, because I'll need all of my time to express my thoughts on this particular pernicious piece of legislation.

I speak in favour of the hoist with the full knowledge that the bill is going to pass. That is the reality of a majority government. The government is elected to govern and lead, and the people take the consequences, and they have their opportunity at some subsequent time. That does not, however, mean that those same people shouldn't be given an opportunity to express their views forcefully, to demonstrate in a peaceful way if necessary, and attempt, however futilely, to change the government's mind on certain matters. Ultimately the responsibility in a responsible government rests with the government for whatever piece of legislation exists.

I don't know that it's that easy to convince people in an increasingly heterogeneous society of the importance of human rights legislation. Unless you've been a victim of discrimination of some form, I think it is virtually impossible to convince a person that it is of prime importance — this whole matter of civil rights. It's been so long in coming, and it's so fragile, like the economic recovery. What we've become in the last fifty years, in terms of our sensitivity to those people who are different, has been a long and rocky road. I remember very well going to school in the little town of Mission in the Fraser Valley, which I was privileged and honoured to represent federally for a number of years, where half my classmates were young Japanese Canadians. It has been mentioned many times; the struggle to have people of Oriental extraction receive the vote. I am not going to go over the whole history of their banishment as possible enemy aliens and the fact that they lost all their property during World War II. That story has been told. I use it only to illustrate that it takes time to develop these concerns for human rights, and the destruction of those human rights or an attack on them can take a relatively little time. I would like to tell you that those Japanese Canadians in those days in my community were valued citizens. But they weren't. They were a visible minority in the tough times of the thirties, a threat to other people's incomes. The story in my town among my people, including my own family, was that those Japs — not Japanese but Japs — are going to have 12 kids and work for two bits an hour, and that's going to force all of our wages down.

The fact is that the Valley did not bloom again after those people were banished until we had another visible minority move into agriculture: the Indo-Canadians of today. We have treated them with a similar kind of unacceptance.

We white Caucasians don't have a monopoly on bigotry. I can name you a lot of other groups, and I will in time, but I hope that we as a reasonably enlightened society, and more enlightened than most.... Even when we have this bill, we can attack it as a party, we can say it's not good enough and it doesn't offer the protection it should and all the rest of those things, but still when we're finished our society is going to be better than most. But that's not good enough. All of us have in us a learned behaviour of one kind or another, whether it's discrimination against lesbians.... I don't particularly understand that kind of difference in sexual orientation. I am convinced, though, that you don't acquire it — that if you are the 1 percent of those people who are gay, you probably are physically constructed in such a way that you are, and I don't mean in terms of temperament, outlook and various other matters that are far too difficult and too medical, spiritual and psychological for me to understand. But we've all got it.

The Japanese citizens of my day — immigrants who didn't speak English very well — the parents and youngsters — suffered a lot of indignities in the schools of Mission. We hoped, though, that we could somehow make them all little brown WASPS, because in those days we didn't have what was called a pluralistic society where we revelled and were excited about our differences. In those days we wanted everybody to be the same. God was in his heaven, and the King was on his throne — he was until Mrs. Simpson came along, and that shook us all up. We had a society that was orderly. It was a society of consensus. If you happened to view something differently than the others, you were an outcast from the mainstream of society. We didn't have the multiracial, multicoloured view; we had a monochromatic outlook on attitudes and lifestyles, and anything that was different we stamped out.

Those people in those days probably took it because they had no alternatives. But when people have alternatives, then they show us the differences between what they would like and what they are prepared to take, if they have an option.

[4:45]

Mr. Speaker, in talking about this hoist I suggested that I wasn't sanguine about the fact that even the six-month hoist was going to alert a lot of people to it. I think it is pretty well recognized in parliamentary procedure that a six-month hoist really means that we don't want the bill. We really don't want the bill because we feel, although it might have been fine in 1935, 1940 or 1945, that it is inappropriate for today. We feel that we're leaving something that is actually better. So instead of going about it in an attempt to approve the bill that we have, we are intending to abolish it and replace it with something that some of us feel is not as worthy, and I say that with all the responsibility that I can muster.

[ Page 4496 ]

1 don't pretend to be an expert on the bill. I don't even pretend to have a great feel for it particularly. All I do know is that people come to expect certain things. Yes, education is helpful in how we look at others and how accepting we are of people who are different than ourselves. Education makes a great contribution, but the question is: can you educate or legislate morality, or do you need the support of both aspects? I put forward the thesis that education by itself is not enough. It took a lot of people marching the streets in Alabama and other places, accompanied by civil rights legislation, to give the black American the opportunities that he enjoys today. He is an equal. That is really what civil and human rights is all about: to treat everybody, so far as possible, equally. If we determine, because they're disadvantaged, to treat them unequally, we call that affirmative action. If we determine that they are going to be treated unequally because of their differences in colour, age, race, hue, handicaps — mental, physical or whatever — we call that discrimination. I would prefer us to be involved in the positive discrimination called affirmative action.

I'm not convinced that you can just educate people and that will solve the problems. If there are no penalties for transgressions of what is good taste or what is downright cruel and discriminatory in terms of jobs, housing or whatever, then why should anybody choose to do anything other than ignore it? That's why I have the problem with the lack of enforcement, persuasive attitude and that whole business about "reasonable cause." Other people have talked about the groups who are left out of it, but I'll come to that.

Six hundred years of religious tensions in Ireland aided and abetted by the wool manufacturers from Britain who were looking for cheap labour off the sins of capitalism, which amounted to playing one religious group off against another through their clergy, has brought bitterness for years in Ireland. I don't think the Irish are any different genetically than we are. There might even be some Irish here. They don't fight as much when they come over to Canada — at least they don't anymore. The Fenians used to a hundred years ago, but they don't anymore.

I don't think, for instance, that the Lebanese are really any different than we are genetically. Oh, they might have enlarged nostrils, and maybe a little tuck in the eyelids for fighting against the sandstorms and stuff like that — physical adaptations to the environment — but basically they are not any different, at least from one another. But we've got a city in ruins because of hatred brought on by a combination of different religions where the Shiites hate the Druse, and the Druse hate the Moslems and the other kinds of Moslems, and the Moslems hate the Christians. It seems to me that if we had some kind of arrangement there where we could defuse that situation, it would be helpful. But these are matters of attitudes, and that's really the basis of racism, whether you call it racism or religionism, or whether your hatred is brought along by ethnic considerations.

The people who are discriminated against in this country are Indo-Canadians at the moment — many of them, especially the farmworkers. I want to talk a little bit about that as I go on here. But that doesn't mean those very same people aren't discriminating against another branch of their own society in the Punjab, the Indians against the Sikh. We don't have a monopoly on bigotry, racism, hate or religious quarrels. What we should be recognizing, I think, is the fact that we as a society need to have the mechanisms to protect us from dissolving into that kind of racial turmoil that can destroy countries. Now I'm overdrawing it, I'm exaggerating it. I don't think for one minute if we pass this bill that we will become another Lebanon. But I know, since I've been there, what it has done to that country and their capital city. Similarly, the Bahá'í in Iran are being exterminated because, again, they are different.

So we've got to be very careful, because it's only a small veneer that prevents us from being racist or bigots of all kinds. And we are, and I am. It's imbedded right in our language. Here's one: "He works like a nigger." My own mother says that all the time, you know. Unless you become aware of it or attuned to it, you don't even know you're uttering a racial slur. It's something that we've got to learn. So A-plus to the minister in terms of education. But if a guy says "He's a nigger," and he can't even prosecute because he's been insulted or denied a room, then it's up to the minister to do something about that, to take that into consideration and not leave that loophole in the act whereby a poor man cannot get justice because he cannot bring his case to justice except through the courts, and he may not be able to afford the courts. In the past he could have gone to a commission and had his hearing, and that probably served his concern a lot more economically.

"Try to jew them down." "We were bargaining and he tried to jew me down." Well, that's part of our heritage, you know. It's something that I know a lot of people, including me, have to guard against saying. We have learned not to say those things because we've become, I guess, a little more enlightened society in the last 25 years.

I don't think it's because we gave it to the minorities. I think they began insisting on being treated equally, and they have said that they're not going to take that kind of stuff anymore. I don't think that anything, whether it's union wages or better legislation or rights, or anti-pollution legislation or whatever, ever come about because some government was Nice Nelly enough to give it to them. People get their rights because they fight for them. That's the only way they get their rights. They're not given to them, any more than wage increases or clean water or clean air. They get them because they raise hell and protest and demand them. That's when they get them, and they don't get them a moment too soon.

Another phrase: "That's real white of you." There's an example of a kind of superiority we have, and we never question that. I used to use that phrase all the time: "Thanks very much; that's real white of you." But what does it really mean? And what about this? "He hasn't a Chinaman's chance."

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Has that got anything to do with this legislation?

MR. ROSE: What I am suggesting to you is that this has to do with the kind of attitudes that we have in our society. A combination of legislation — decent legislation.... An opportunity for concern to be expressed over legislation that I don't think is satisfactory legislation prompts the hoist, because it gives us an opportunity — I don't know if anybody is listening — to make speeches about things like this that are not highly partisan speeches. I'm not suggesting that all Socreds are bigots, not at all. Somebody said the other day that all Tories aren't racists and bigots but pretty well all racists and bigots are Tories. Now I don't know if that's true or not. That was an assertion made by a former EA to the Prime Minister. What does it mean anyway? It means that

[ Page 4497 ]

when you say, "He hasn't a Chinaman's chance...." It means that traditionally in our society, if you were a member of a minority race, your chances for marriage or for a decent occupation were severely limited. Thank God that's not the case any more. But it was the case for many years.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair]

Well, I think I've outlined a part of it, at least, that deals to some extent with the fragility of our respect for others: how close to the surface racial, religious and other kinds of hatreds are; how important it is to guard against our own sort of background leading us into these traps and to be careful about our words, because they affect the sensitivity of people and the inadequacies of attempting to provide protection for those things through this particular piece of legislation. We would like to see it amended. We intend to offer some amendments. We may be able to improve it, but we think it's so bad that it should be hoisted for six months — to get back in order, in case anyone should ask what that's got to do with the hoist.

I received this letter the other day from my riding. It says here, in the photostat of an ad: "Person required for baker's helper, phone such-and-such." It doesn't say "man" or "woman" because that's against the Human Rights Code. It says "person." "Dear Sir or Madam — since they were writing to me I can't understand why they got mixed up about that. "My 16-year-old daughter phoned the number given in the attached advertisement about a job as a baker's helper. This advertisement was in the Herald Enterprise" — that's a local Coquitlam newspaper — "March 20, 1984. Upon phoning, she was told that they wanted a boy." After three daughters I felt that way myself — without being discriminatory. Nevertheless, this is what she was told. "She was given no consideration whatever as a possible applicant for the job. Please could you look into the matter? I am very concerned about the negative effects this type of discrimination can have." She signs it because she's the mother of the girl. I have to reply to this. So what do I say to this woman? I say: "Once upon a time we could have taken some action on your behalf through the Human Rights Code but we can't do that anymore."

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Why not?

MR. ROSE: Because we haven't got anywhere to go except to the minister.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: You gave her the wrong advice. You should have told her to put in a complaint under the Human Rights Code. You didn't do your job.

MR. ROSE: You got rid of the Human Rights Commission.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: You never knew what the commission did. The commission never took complaints all the time it was in operation. The ministry did.

MR. ROSE: Complaints were referred to the Human Rights Commission all the time.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: You're wrong. They never were — ever — in the history of human rights legislation in this province.

MR. ROSE: Under this particular bill she has no protection at all, has she?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Yes.

MR. ROSE: What's she going to do?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: She's going to put a complaint in.

MR. ROSE: To whom?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: To the Human Rights Council.

MR. ROSE: They'll look after it to see whether or not it's worthwhile, and if they do, it will go ahead?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Yes.

MR. ROSE: And that's a commitment?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Yes.

MR. ROSE: Then I'll write her and tell her that.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Do you want to apologize now?

MR. ROSE: I'll apologize, certainly. I don't find any difficulty apologizing if I'm incorrect on some matter, but I find members of the government a little reluctant to do the same when they're wrong on things. We're fighting this legislation, though, to make the addressing of such complaints easier, not more difficult.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Read the legislation.

[5:00]

MR. ROSE: All right, we'll see what happens. I'm going to advise her to do just that. I'm going to monitor the case right through and see just exactly what happens. It has been found that no particular occupation.... All their experience in human rights legislation in the United States found no particular job that can be done only by one sex, with two exceptions. One is that they don't usually recommend female attendants in male restrooms; the other is acting for a particular part, although that was done in Shakespeare's time.

This is the sort of thing that has happened. I'm not certain that she's going to go to these lengths, but I will certainly give her the advice that the minister has offered. If I'm wrong about this bill and this particular advice, I'd be very pleased not only to apologize to the minister but to the House. I want you to know, though, that this is the kind of case for which we need this kind of protection and I have to make certain that we do have it. There's no question about that. I don't think you can always be that assured when things are happening like that.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Especially if you don't read the legislation.

[ Page 4498 ]

MR. ROSE: Well, I'm not sure you read all the legislation that comes before us either — the fine print on everything. We'll see whether or not this whole thing has been watered down.

"Five members to investigate complaints, recommend settlements or make orders to cease discriminatory practices." Is that going to get that girl a job?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: It could do.

MR. ROSE: What will happen if they don't do this?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Why wouldn't they? It's against the law to refuse employment on the basis of being....

MR. ROSE: The penalties are prescribed there too, and the full letter of the law will be imposed?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: If it's proved, sure.

MR. ROSE: How do you prove it?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: It gets investigated and is either proved or disproved.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, we haven't reached the committee stage in this bill.

MR. ROSE: I think it will turn out to be one of these things.... Upon investigation it will be determined that it was not intended to discriminate, and that is the way out. This "reasonable cause" business has been abolished. Regardless of what the minister has to say, it's the word of the employer against the word of the applicant. That's what we're particularly concerned about — getting into the investigation without any real enforcement. That's what other people have said when we've talked about this legislation, and I'm not going to.... We spent almost a full year working on a Charter of Rights in the federal House, and we know that unless it offends the Criminal Code in a particular province, the Charter of Rights is very difficult to enforce in cases such as this, even if it has discriminatory overtones.

We've been accused recently of giving only token resistance to certain pieces of legislation that have come before us. On the one hand, we're told that we don't cooperate and want to stall everything and hold everything up, and that we're not willing to let things go by or willing to make even simple kinds of accommodation to the government's legislation. I've got a Times-Colonist article here where it says: "NDP Resistance Only Slight, Despite Controversial Bills." When we do fight a controversial bill, there's not a soul in the gallery who is prepared to even admit that we're putting up, I think, a pretty fair attack on this legislation. That's the part of it that, as far as I'm concerned, is very regretful and disappointing.

So we've got a bill here abolishing the human rights branch and the Human Rights Commission and recommending settlements on the basis of five members, whoever they are, investigating complaints. It has to prove intent to discriminate; it'll be one person's word against another's. But some good things are happening here too. It adds physical and mental handicaps to the list of things against which discrimination is specifically prohibited. But it wipes out "without reasonable cause." That is the big flaw, as we in this party see it.

I talked about educating the public. The minister says he's interested in educating the public. Well, I wish him all the best of luck in that, because there's a lot of education to be done. I recall one time being up in Vernon in the fifties, waiting for a bus home at two o'clock in the morning after working in the hotel. It was kind of a brand-new hotel at the time, and they were very proud of it in Vernon. I was sitting there in the lobby waiting for the bus to go home to Kelowna, and the clerk at the desk encountered a native who walked in. I couldn't hear the conversation, but when it was all over he said to me: "Do you know what that guy wanted? That Indian walked in here as big as life and wanted a room." I said: "Yes, and what did you do about it?" He said: "I told him we didn't have one. We're not having any Indians in here." That's not an uncommon thing; I wonder if the native person now could take that to the Human Rights Commission. I would certainly hope so, and I would be pleased to act as his witness if it weren't something like 20 years ago that this happened. I hope we've improved since then, but we have and we haven't.

One of the worst cases of discrimination I can think of is the way we treat our agricultural workers, most of whom are of a visible minority. This isn't true just in British Columbia; it's true all across Canada. Most of the people who do agricultural work are immigrants. They're either Mexicans or people from the Caribbean brought in to pick tobacco, or else they're the Indo-Canadians who own, operate and are employed on the farms in the Fraser Valley. Mr. Speaker, there are no safety standards for those people, really. It's only recently that they've been able to get even any protection from Workers' Compensation. Only on April 14, 1983, were they eligible for workers' compensation.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: It's not relevant. It has nothing to do with this bill.

MR. ROSE: Well, it shows that in certain occupations, predominantly peopled by and employing visible minorities, there are fewer safety standards and less protection for those workers than there are for other citizens working elsewhere. It's the same as in unemployment insurance. Farmworkers have the same thing with unemployment insurance.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: What do you mean, there are heroic efforts to explain it? I know you can make excuses.... Look, an Indo-Canadian died because of a monitor that has no safety standards and is admitted into Canada and declared okay by our Department of Agriculture, and there are no safety standards required on farms in British Columbia.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: On a point of order, we're dealing with an amendment to Bill 11. The matter of Workers' Compensation Board safety regulations has absolutely no relevance to the bill before the House. I just want to serve notice, under the terms of the debate, that if it's your ruling that that's okay, then I want to have the opportunity too to be able to speak about a number of other issues, including workers' compensation.

[ Page 4499 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: There certainly is a requirement for relevancy in debate. We are dealing with the hoist to this motion. I think I can appreciate to some degree what the speaker is getting at, but perhaps he would try to be somewhat more relevant and direct his remarks directly to the hoist motion.

MR. LAUK: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker, I'm surprised I find myself on my feet and disagreeing with you, because Mr. Speaker is seldom incorrect on these matters. The point that I understood the hon. member for Coquitlam-Moody to be making was that this bill should be hoisted because it does not deal with the larger question of indirect discrimination against visible minorities. You know, you can't do by the back door what you can't do by the front door. That should be dealt with clearly in this legislation, and it's certainly one of the reasons that I intend to raise when I speak on this amendment.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. Perhaps the member for Coquitlam-Moody would proceed.

MR. ROSE: What I'm saying is that there are concentrated in certain kinds of industry in our country a preponderance of those people who, I guess because of the lack of education, are forced into rather unsafe, hard, back-breaking and sometimes very demeaning, low-paid jobs; and if that isn't bad enough, they risk their lives because there are no safety standards imposed on farm-owners. Until recently they couldn't even get workers' compensation. They work with many dangerous toxic chemicals frequently without proper safety standards. Nor are they educated. So they run great risks merely because those industries in which they work are not required to provide the standards necessary for their protection. I realize that on this I'm reaching on a matter of order. I don't deny that at all. I welcome the minister to get up and talk about this.

One guy died. We don't know how many others' lives have been shortened. They do not have proper masks, and they don't know how to handle chemicals. We don't know what the ultimate residual effect of this is. It's the same with unemployment insurance. Farmworkers were not eligible for unemployment insurance until recently. They had to work at least 25 days for one employer in order to get it at all.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, as you can appreciate, I try very hard to accommodate speakers on the floor, but I must say at this point that I'm beginning to lose you as well. We seem to be getting away from the hoist on this bill which deals with human rights. I suppose you're talking about discrimination against these people, but it doesn't seem particularly obvious. I would ask you please, hon. member, if you would confine your remarks directly to the hoist motion.

MR. ROSE: I'm attempting to say that I'm quite sure that if this had been a white Caucasian farmworker, or if a series of those people who are members of the "dominant and common culture" had suffered equal risks, there would be a greater political effort made to accommodate their concerns on safety. That's what I'm saying. Similarly on the UI. That is a federal matter. You could say: "Well, that's not the case here." By our 25-day rule, which applies to nobody else except roustabouts in circuses, we've required them to work 25 days for one employer in order to get UI, when that's often impossible.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: You've been wanting to say that since you left Ottawa.

MR. ROSE: I said it in Ottawa as well. I'm saying that this sort of thing is fairly common. What are we going to do about it? I think the minister has the means in his power. As Minister of Labour, he's responsible for that kind of thing. Has he made any representations to change any of those things? I don't think so. When he speaks as Minister of Labour, I certainly won't be up on my feet on a point of order to charge him with being out of order; if he decides to discuss some of these matters, I will welcome it.

There are too many people left out of this legislation. There is a list of them as long as my arm: immigrants, people of different sexual orientation, pregnant women, farmworkers, all kinds of people who I think need the protection but who don't get it.

I'm going to close by returning to some recent examples that have come to public attention about discrimination, and an effort on behalf of a group putting certain recommendations to the Vancouver School Board to try to overcome some of these matters.

[5:15]

I have here a survey which was a story in the Times-Colonist, April 19. It has this to say about some of these matters: "Dick Durante, a high school principal, said a working committee on race relations set up by the Vancouver School Board was told by the black student that, following the principal's instructions, he 'walked around the school grounds with a yardstick in front of him'" — because he was told not to get within three feet of a white girl. Here's another example of this: "A workshop in race relations policy was told by Durante that an elementary school student to whom English was a second language was fined five cents by her teacher every time she spoke in her native tongue." If this is the kind of stuff we're getting out of so-called enlightened educated people such as teachers — and I'm one — then I regret that that sort of thing occurs. On behalf of my own profession I'm embarrassed that that kind of ignorance exists in our society. We are no longer an all-white society. For 44 percent of the students in Vancouver schools English is a second language; they are Chinese. Thirteen percent are of East Indian heritage.

Here are the recommendations that have been made to the board by a committee under Mr. Durante. The board in consultation with appropriate racial and ethnic groups supports the practice of acquiring world literature in translation. The reason for that is that if we can develop genuine appreciation for other cultures, we're less likely to have the kind of thing that exists, for instance, in the Vancouver School District — and also what happened in Keremeos last summer, when a group of French-Canadian farmworkers, because they spoke French, were set upon, beaten up, violated and intimidated.

Another group suggested the board affirm itself as an equal opportunity employer, with guidelines for hiring and promoting being developed which reflect policies of the board on racial and ethnic relations. What does that mean? It means hiring more black, Chinese and East Indian teachers to provide occupations for those people in role-model jobs, so that the person feels that those jobs are available as well as

[ Page 4500 ]

those which tend to be more menial and low-paid, such as farmworkers and domestics. You can have policemen who are Indo-Canadians, Chinese or black. We do. But we don't have them in sufficient numbers.

The board directs the superintendent to continue to investigate means of obtaining legislative and economic support for the provision of English as a second language in preschool programs. We've been cutting that ESL program by substantial amounts over the last year.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps it might be said that you've been relatively tolerant of my discursive remarks, that I have strayed and meandered all around the mulberry bush from time to time. But what I've tried to express is my own concern for the fragility of race relations and discrimination of all kinds. The fact is that I don't think anybody needs to do the holier-than-thou; that exists in all of us. We need strong guidelines to change these matters. We need, as the minister says, a very positive educational element. But we also need strong legislation.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Minister of Labour.

Interjections.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: On the amendment, Mr. Speaker. I only want to take a minute, because I can't wait to hear from the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson).

I just want to comment on what the last speaker said in a couple of areas. There's a lot of misinformation about what is happening here. Through no fault of his own, I'm sure that the last speaker transmitted some of it. The matter of the bakery helper is covered under the present Code, and it will be covered under the new act. You mentioned the matter of the Indian who was not able to get a room in a hotel. That is covered under the present Code, and it will be covered under the new act. That kind of discrimination is against the law in British Columbia, and it will be advanced to every measure of the law.

The other question that's been raised by almost every speaker, in both the debate on the amendment and in the debate on second reading, has been the matter of whether intent must be proved. The best legal advice that I can get is that the position that intent must be proved under the new bill is wrong. Intent does not have to be proved under the terms of the new bill. That's the legal advice I've been given, and that's what I've said on numerous public occasions. In the case that that legal advice may be wrong, then I am prepared to accept an amendment at the proper time that will deal with that problem and put words similar to the words in the Ontario legislation into this legislation, and I serve notice now that between now and clause-by-clause debate of the bill I will have an amendment drafted. I will then ask for leave to be able to put that amendment on the floor. Well, it will be, because I don't know how long it will take me to get it through the process. Leave will likely be granted, and I'm quite sure it will be given.

MR. NICOLSON: The purpose of this motion, I think, is.... If we look at the history of human rights protection, yes, our government brought in an act. It was a landmark act, but it wasn't the final word in good human rights legislation. It was a very large step. The government sought to repeal that, for whatever reasons. Certainly one of the reasons, one would hope, is that we could have improved upon it, because I know that many of my colleagues felt very strongly that there were shortcomings in that act. As good as it may have been in its day, it was almost immediately apparent that there were some shortcomings.

We are arguing that there should be a hoist of this act because it's a very important area of concern, particularly to the people who suffer the burden of discrimination of various kinds against various groups throughout the province. Many of these people are not satisfied. The government brought out this new bill, and they said: "It's a better bill than the old bill, because it includes, for instance, groups that weren't mentioned in the old bill." It sounds very good when they say it. It specifically mentions persons with physical or mental disability, which wasn't in the old bill. Of course, the counter-argument to that is that under the old bill there was a "reasonable cause" provision. Under that old act people such as those with physical or mental disability did get covered because of the interpretation of the act. People also were protected from age discrimination, but now, because we have codified it, only people between age 45 and 65 are going to have this protection, whereas younger people will not.

What I'm saying is that people in government can very easily convince themselves that there are improvements in this act. The opposition can get up and say there aren't. By codifying, as we have argued, we are limiting the breadth and flexibility of this act, and we could make better improvements. If what government says they feel is in the bill.... The minister has admitted now that he is willing to accept one amendment that will make quite a difference in terms of proof of intent, and that is the second objection that has been put forward about this bill — the proof of intent to discriminate.

We did manage to hold this bill over the two-week adjournment that we had in this House, and because of holding it over for two weeks in second reading we were able to cause some review, and so on one of the major objections made about the second greatest weakness in this bill, which would by most people's interpretation require proof of intent to discriminate, now is the minister willing, regardless of his legal advice, to move on that and write it in. That's good.

If we were to have a longer hoist and not just bulldoze through this.... What would be even more preferable would be to refer this not to a committee of the whole House but to a select standing committee and allow witnesses to come in, allow the various member groups of the Human Rights Coalition to come in and tell us how they interpret certain sections and why they feel that those sections aren't in the best interests of human rights in British Columbia.

We do not agree about the enforcement of this particular piece of legislation. It is argued that this new Human Rights Council has a more restricted function, that there is no explicit provision for staff, and that they are going to be hamstrung in terms of pursuing the legislation. We have other statutes on our books. The statutes themselves are not all that bad, but if there is not the staff to enforce them, then they might as well not be there at all. We see how some of the statutes of this province have fallen into that kind of disuse simply because while it may be illegal to carry on certain kinds of business practices — for instance, such as the one I referred to today during question period — without proper staff they become a sham. That is one of the concerns in the community and that is one of the differences.

A hoist of the bill would allow for the possibility of the resolution of those differences, and it really is a problem that

[ Page 4501 ]

we are discussing here which should not be a political problem. When you bring in human rights legislation, it shouldn't be opposed; it should be so good that it cannot be opposed. There have been many kinds of legislation brought into the House which both sides would get up and support. I don't think anybody voted against the Human Rights Act the first time it was brought in back in the early 1970s — the old Human Rights Code. If this were good legislation, that would be the case today. If there is a hoist of this bill, if there is some time and if there is a second look.... It would be unfortunate to have a delay, but it would be even more unfortunate to proceed with this bill and let it be etched in stone. We have already seen the minister's intention to move on the question of intent to discriminate, and that was in only two weeks. Imagine what could happen if the bill were put aside — and there are more ways of doing that than just voting for this motion, of course. The government could simply not proceed with the bill for a little while.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I think that if the bill were put aside for six months we would also be able to address the point of disagreement about complaints. Complaints of violations have to be filed with the council, which is then in charge of investigating them and deciding whether or not they should proceed. They have to decide whether they are facetious, vexatious.... I forget the terminology, but whether they're serious: "...where it appears to the council that the complaint...is trivial, frivolous, vexatious or made in bad faith...." I would hope that the council would not be bogged down in complaints that are frivolous or in bad faith. I would hope that they would be in a position where they could pursue almost every complaint and give almost everyone their day in court.

[5:30]

We as MLAs often act as ombudsmen. We have many people come into our constituency offices, and at first we might dismiss their complaints as being frivolous or vexatious, and would maybe dismiss some of these people as being absolutely insane, I suppose sometimes. Yet when you listen to the complaints, you find out sometimes that they are not vexatious; they are serious, they are real.

A case in point was when I was contacted by the Homemakers. They had a complaint from a lady who claimed that she had been taken by her children.... She was an elderly lady. This was an elderly lady who used to go around.... It was well known that she would go around Nelson throwing rocks at people and causing all kinds of problems, but this lady complained that her daughter and son-in-law came and tied her up, put her in the back of a van, went and cleaned out her bank account, and took her rings, her jewellery and all of her goods and possessions from her. They virtually kidnapped her for a few weeks. This lady came back and complained about it. It seemed like a vexatious complaint. It seemed like it wasn't serious. But we took it seriously, to the point where we found out that indeed it was a very serious and honest complaint made by a very eccentric lady. But there was no eccentricity in the complaint. It was a real complaint. It was one that was acted upon by the government agent, me and the chief of police of the city of Nelson. Charges were laid in Calgary for that abduction, and there was restitution and restoration of goods and property in accordance with the law. But it could have very easily been dismissed as being vexatious.

So if we were to hoist this bill, perhaps more and more people could make the point of their concern about the council and how it will be handling complaints, how it will be making decisions on whether or not they should proceed, and how they will be affected by the lack of staffing or the adequate staffing and support that is provided by the Legislature — which is not spelled out in this act. Mr. Speaker, that is another concern, then, of the public — the people who are very concerned with human rights legislation.

There are also legitimate concerns and differences of opinion over the adequacy of the protection of those with physical and mental disabilities. The bill gives explicit protection to people with physical and mental disabilities. In cases involving the sale or rental of property, protection is strengthened; however, in cases involving public facilities and employment, the practical effect is likely to be less protection than was given by the reasonable cause provisions in the existing Code.

So what I'm saying is that there are real differences. If this bill was a good bill it would pass unopposed, but there is opposition not just in this House but in the community. With the two-week delay we had during our adjournment at Easter time, the minister has addressed one of these areas of concern and has given an undertaking for amendment. Given a greater pause and more consideration, we could perhaps ensure that a bill which almost appears to be unamendable, because it is flawed in so many different areas.... But we may be able to be proven wrong, and we may be able to have a bill which could pass and could stand the test of a division on third reading if it were properly fixed up, if it were given the time. I suspect that people are going to have to live with this bill as it is, at least for another three or four years, and in that time a great deal can happen.

Last summer, with the concern over the so-called 26 bills or the dirty dozen, the concern that was brought forward more often than anything by people expressing their dismay at that battery of legislation was over the human rights bill, which was then Bill 27. It is still a concern. We really do forget how quickly people can be discriminated against. At one time the majority of people were the subject of discrimination. It really has been the privileged versus the disadvantaged, I suppose, in history. At one time it took only about 50 very privileged people for the election of a Member of Parliament in Britain. It wasn't until 1830 — just 100 years before most of our lifetimes — that there was a reform bill which extended franchise to all people who owned property, let alone to all men, women and men, all races. I would hope that this piece of legislation would not look so limited when we look back on it, as when one looks back on the reform bills of 1830 in Great Britain. I would hope that if we pass a bill in this House, we could all vote for it. If there is a proper pause — and I'm encouraged by the fact that the minister has shown movement on one of the five or six major points of contention in this bill — then perhaps there is a chance; that chance will be enhanced by hoisting this bill and making sure that what we do here today will look good not just a few days after it's been passed but will stand the test of time. Then I think it would be a very positive step for this Legislature to take.

I really can't understand how government can bring into the House a bill on such a subject as human rights which could cause opposition not just from this political organization here but from the general public, and that's what we want this hoist for. We want the general public to make the point on

[ Page 4502 ]

more than just the intent section of the bill — also on some of those other points of contention.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, I spoke against Bill 11 during second reading and I'm very pleased to stand in my place now to speak in favour of this hoist motion, since the government apparently has not recognized the arguments that we made on second reading. We are hopeful that they will recognize that it is advisable to hoist this bill for a period of six months.

There are many reasons for that motion to hoist. One of them relates to the minister's own comments that he made here in this Legislature — which I don't think were intended to be heard on the record but which were very clearly heard by myself and a number of others on this side of the House — regarding the length of time that we had to study this particular bill. The minister said: "We are not proceeding with undue haste in bringing this bill forward for debate because you've had at least six months to study its provisions." That means only one thing: we had six months to study Bill 27, and this Bill 11 is virtually the same as that absolutely discredited Bill 27 that was introduced last July.

I would like to review briefly the sequence of events that took place. We had the human rights legislation introduced last July. Everyone across the country with any interest in human rights condemned the legislation and pointed out that a very backward step was being initiated by the introduction of that Bill 27. Even the government recognized that the legislation needed to be withdrawn. Even the government recognized that it could not proceed with that Bill 27, Mr. Speaker. So the bill died on the order paper and we were given a promise, through the Premier, that a committee would be established to advise the minister about issues relating to human rights. Of course, those issues would relate to the new bill that the minister would introduce.

The committee was established and the committee did a good deal of work trying to recommend changes that would make the new bill, Bill 11, a good bill on human rights. That committee was still meeting on Thursday, April 5. It was still hearing submissions on Thursday, April 5. It then had to go through the evidence that it had heard and prepare recommendations for the minister. The minister presumably had to discuss these recommendations with cabinet and have them approved; the bill then had to be drawn up; the bill then had to be printed; and the bill then had to be introduced into the Legislature. On April 5 the hearings were still going on, yet by the following Tuesday we had the bill introduced into the Legislature. Thursday to Tuesday. There was the bill introduced into the House at 6 o'clock.

On an issue as important as human rights, it seems logical to me that the minister and the government would then allow a reasonable period of time for people to examine the new human rights legislation and allow people who are interested in the field of human rights to comment on the bill before it was brought forward for debate. That was not the case. The bill was introduced at 6 o'clock on Tuesday, and by Thursday of the same week at 10 o'clock in the morning this bill was under debate. There was no opportunity for people who are interested in this area to have received a copy of the bill, let alone analyse the bill or make suggestions as to how the government might improve the legislation or how the government has gone wrong. On that Thursday morning I complained during second reading about the undue haste. It was then that the minister said: "Well, you've had over six months to consider this. Why are you concerned?" — which means only one thing: that Bill 11 is virtually the same as the discredited Bill 27, the one the government decided not to proceed with because of the adverse publicity it was getting not only in this province but right across the country.

The minister is now telling us that this is good legislation. The minister also told us that Bill 27 was good legislation. I heard him on a radio program extolling the virtues of the old Bill 27, which was so bad that the government eventually had to abandon it.

[5:45]

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: He said it was absolutely the best in all of Canada, and there of their liberties or human rights through the introduction of Bill 27. It was absolutely the best; never before in Canada had we seen such good legislation. The minister doesn't like to be reminded of those comments, because he finally had to abandon that piece of legislation. Then we are faced with a bill that is virtually the same as Bill 27.

After the minister introduced Bill 11 he talked about the fact that there will be people in this province who would not support the legislation. He said that people who had an overriding vested interest in their field would not see the new legislation as fair. Now how can the minister complain about anyone who has a vested interest in the preservation of human rights? What sort of vested interest is there if they are trying to improve our society by ensuring that we have human rights legislation to which we can point with pride? But oh, no, Mr. Speaker, the minister feels that people who have an understanding and concern for human rights have a vested interest of some sort that cannot be met; a vested interest that they will continue to hold in spite of the fact that this government doesn't seem to take any interest in human rights.

If this government had any interest at all in ensuring that the best possible human rights legislation were introduced to this Legislature, they would not have introduced a bill that removes one of the most significant aspects of human rights protection in this province: that is, the section dealing with reasonable cause. It means that this legislation has no flexibility. It means that only those people who are specifically named in the legislation have any protection whatsoever. It means that thousands and thousands of people will be denied basic protection under this human rights legislation because the flexibility has been removed and they are not specifically named in the bill. So while they have added the word "handicapped, " they have denied the right of many others to seek any kind of redress under this particular legislation when they are faced with discrimination.

One of the basic, fundamental issues in our society relates to the kind of legislation we have protecting human rights. The basic integrity of a society is reflected in the kind of human rights legislation we have. On this score the government has failed miserably.

Why doesn't the minister, at this stage, take time to consult with the people who are knowledgeable in the area of human rights? Why doesn't he consult with those people who are interested enough in the field to have served on various human rights commissions in this province? Why doesn't he take time to consult about what the impact of this particular legislation will be with people who serve, for instance, on the Canadian Human Rights Commission? Why doesn't he seek out the opinion, at this stage, of Gordon Fairweather, who is

[ Page 4503 ]

the chairman of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and who was so vocal, so outspoken and so critical of Bill 27 when it was introduced? Surely the government would respect the views of that long-time conservative, Mr. Fairweather, and would respect what he has to say about this particular piece of legislation.

Six months is all we're asking at this stage in order to have that kind of consultation take place. I have a lot more to say about this particular issue, but in view of the time I will move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to present a report.

Leave granted.

Mr. Pelton presented the first report of the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills, which was read as follows and received:

"Mr. Speaker, your Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills begs leave to report as follows:

"That the standing orders have been complied with relating to the petition for leave to introduce a private bill intituled Bill No. 1 An Act to Amend the Vancouver Charter, except for late filing, and with respect thereto the petitioner has paid double fees in accordance with standing order 98(3).

"Your committee recommends that a refund of one-half the fees paid be made.

"Your committee recommends that the petitioner be allowed to proceed with the said bill.

"All of which is respectfully submitted. F.C. Austin Pelton, Chairman."

MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, I move that the rules be suspended and the report adopted.

Motion approved.

BILL NO. 1, AN ACT TO AMEND
THE VANCOUVER CHARTER

On a motion by Mr. Parks, Bill PR401, Bill No. 1, An Act to Amend the Vancouver Charter, was introduced, read a first time and ordered to be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills.

Mr. Pelton presented the second report of the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills, which was read as follows and received:

"Mr. Speaker, your Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills begs leave to report as follows:

"That the standing orders have been complied with relating to the petition for leave to introduce a private bill intituled An Act Respecting Central Trust Company and Crown Trust Company, except for late filing, and with respect thereto the petitioner has paid double fees in accordance with standing order 98(3).

"Your committee recommends that a refund of one-half the fees paid be made.

"Your committee recommends that the petitioner be allowed to proceed with the said bill.

"All of which is respectfully submitted. F.C. Austin Pelton, Chairman."

MR. PELTON: By leave I move that the rules be suspended and the report adopted.

Motion approved.

AN ACT RESPECTING CENTRAL TRUST
COMPANY AND CROWN TRUST COMPANY

On a motion by Mr. Parks, Bill PR402, An Act Respecting Central Trust Company and Crown Trust Company, was introduced, read a first time and referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills.

Mr. Pelton presented the third report of the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills, which was read as follows and received:

"Mr. Speaker, your Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills begs leave to report as follows: that the standing orders have been complied with relating to the petition for leave to introduce a private bill intituled Bill 2, An Act to Amend the Vancouver Charter, except for late filing, but with respect thereto the petitioner has paid double fees in accordance with Standing Order 98(3).

"Your committee recommends that a refund of one-half the fees paid be made. Your committee recommends that the petitioner be allowed to proceed with the said bill."

"All of which is respectfully submitted. F.C. Austin Pelton, Chairman."

MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, by leave I move that the rules be suspended and the report adopted.

Motion approved.

BILL NO. 2, AN ACT TO AMEND
THE VANCOUVER CHARTER

On a motion by Mr. Parks, Bill PR403, Bill No. 2, An Act to Amend the Vancouver Charter, was introduced, read a first time and referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills.

Hon. Mr. Nielsen moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:57 p.m.